The northern Tropical Atlantic
The Tropical North Atlantic is a region of strong climate variations from intraseasonal to decadal scales, with impacts upon rainfall rates and storm strikes for the surrounding regions of Africa and the Americas. Important processes in this region include formation of Cape-Verde type hurricanes, seasonal migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the Guinea Dome, interannual variations of the ITCZ migration associated with rainfall anomalies in Africa and the Americas, off-equatorial eddy heat advection by Tropical Instability Waves, and overturning-related ventilation of the oxygen minimum zone.
Because of the significance of these processes, Lumpkin et al. (2004) proposed a northeast extension to the existing array. See PIRATA Northeast Extension for more information.
