Feedbacks on ITCZ migrations from atmosphere-ocean coupling

It is now well established that the remote changes in the atmosphere energy balance can affect the position of the ITCZ. For example, high-latitude warming or cooling in one hemisphere generally shifts the ITCZ into the differentially warming hemisphere. It is also well-established that the wind-driven ocean circulation in low latitudes, which dominates the oceanic energy transport, is tightly coupled to the atmospheric Hadley cells through Ekman balance. Here I discuss implications of this coupling for ITCZ migrations. Theoretical arguments (Schneider et al. 2014) show that the atmosphere-ocean coupling generally dampens ITCZ migrations. Further developments of these arguments indicate how strong this oceanic damping is and how it depends on the climate state.