Southern Ocean Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. As such, it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions: smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean. This ocean zone is where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters. By way of his voyages in the 1770s, Captain James Cook proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the
World Ocean Review of climate and ocean research into the report. The World Ocean Review was first published in 2010 and is supposed to be redone periodically. The scientific facts in this book are supposed to be helpful to those who want to actively participate in the current discussion about climate and ocean research. This chapter gives a quick introduction into our complex climate system and the interactions between the atmosphere, cyrosphere, ocean, lithosphere and biosphere and the different factors that influence them, such as solar radiation, wind and ocean currents. This chapter explains the connections between CO uptake of the ocean, ocean