Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean is the body of water encircling Antarctica, conventionally south of 60 degrees south, dominated by the eastward Antarctic Circumpolar Current that connects the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian basins. Its strong westerly winds drive equatorward Ekman transport, divergence and upwelling of deep water near the Antarctic Divergence, and the formation of Subantarctic Mode Water, Antarctic Intermediate Water, and Antarctic Bottom Water. It is the hub of global overturning, taking up a large share of the ocean’s anthropogenic heat and carbon, and its fronts set steep meridional gradients in temperature and density.