9. Circulation Pattern of the Atmosphere

At the sandy beach of Kota Kinabalu, the weather is unstable and they always expect to be rainy nearly at daily basis. Not as what I am expecting of sunny beaches. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. June 2013.

Equatorial Low or Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

As the equatorial region undergoes heating all year-round, this latitudinal zone creates a thermal low-pressure belt by area that is 35◦ latitude north and south of the equator. The Earth heat transfers process goes from the equator towards the poles. When the air rises from the surface of equator to the tropopause and flowing poleward to either Northern or Southern Hemisphere, the air cools while rising and this causes the clouds to develop which favoring heavy precipitations in equatorial low (ITCZ or Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) regions. In Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), my prediction was sunny beach every day, but it turns out that the region is rainy at most of the time since it is located within the equatorial low belt and is only 661 km away from the equator.