Why does the ITCZ "cling to" landmasses?
Edit: ITCZ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertropical_Convergence_Zone As pointed out in comments.
I'm trying to figure out where exactly the ITCZ in my world will go (at least during its July-equivalent and January-equivalent peaks), and one thing I noticed when reading about it on Wikipedia is that it sort of "clings to" landmasses when there are landmasses present near a path that it would otherwise take over water.
Why does it do this? And, if it's passing over an area that is basically all land, how does it behave?
In the case of my January-equivalent ITCZ, when the star is closer to the southern tropic, I have some relatively small landmasses in water that it can easily cling to. But for the July-equivalent ITCZ, when the star is closer to the northern tropic, it's less clear - at the main continent, from 10 degrees north to 30 degrees north is all solidly far inland, with the bulk of landmass starting around the equator and not really easing off until 50 degrees north.
If the ITCZ's movement is influenced by elevation then there are some paths it could follow, but, the problem is that I don't actually know why it moves the way it does - does it "prefer" being over land because the land has greater elevation (which would make sense given that our July ITCZ has its biggest distortion at the Himalayas), or is there some other reason? I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding why it acts the way it does so that when I add mine, it won't be based on completely incorrect premises.
Included is a map of the world with current placement of the July-equivalent (in red) and January-equivalent (in blue) ITCZ positions, as best I could estimate. Lighter areas on the map represent oceans.
I do apologize if this is something that is easily researched - perhaps I used the wrong search engine queries but while I could find plenty on the ITCZ's effect on prevailing winds and climates, I couldn't find anything that explained why landmasses affect its shape. 591