Maritime Continent moisture and heat high up into the atmosphere which in turn feeds the upper level winds which circle the globe. Maritime Continent Maritime Continent is the name given primarily by meteorologists and oceanographers to the region of Southeast Asia which comprises, amongst other countries, Indonesia, Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, it is situated within a warm ocean region known as the Tropical Warm Pool. The maritime continent consists of many islands, peninsulas and shallow seas. The region is significant in meteorology because it is considered the most important energy source region in the
Continent as "New Holland, an immense island, which some geographers dignify with the appellation of another continent" and the "Oxford English Dictionary" was just as equivocal some decades later. Antarctica was sighted in 1820 during the First Russian Antarctic Expedition and described as a continent by Charles Wilkes on the United States Exploring Expedition in 1838, the last continent identified, although a great "Antarctic" (antipodean) landmass had been anticipated for millennia. An 1849 atlas labelled Antarctica as a continent but few atlases did so until after World War II. From the mid-19th century, atlases published in the United States more commonly