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 Database Project Float (PFL), Moored Buoy (MRB), Drifting Buoy (DRB), Gliders (GLD), Autonomous Pinniped Bathythermograph (APB). The data in the World Ocean Database are made available through the online search and retrieval system known as WOD"select". The World Ocean Atlas (WOA"select") series is a set of gridded (1° grid), climatological, objectively analyzed fields of the variables in the World Ocean Database. The WOA"select" is a selection tool by which the user can designate a geographic area, depth, and oceanographic variable to view climatological means or related statistics for a given variable at the requested depth for the requested geographic area. World Ocean