Alternative Title: Antarctic Ocean
Southern Ocean, also called Antarctic Ocean, the southern portions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans and their tributary seas surrounding Antarctica. Unbroken by any other continental landmass, the Southern Ocean's narrowest constriction is the Drake Passage, 600 miles (about 1,000 km) wide, between South America and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Southern Ocean. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Antarctica: The surrounding seas
The seas around Antarctica have often been likened to the moat around a fortress. The turbulent "Roaring Forties" and "Furious Fifties"…
The structure of the ocean floor includes a continental shelf usually less than 160 miles (about 260 km) wide that attains its maximum width of more than 1,600 miles (2,600 km) in the vicinity of the Weddell and Ross seas. There are oceanic basins farther north that are as much as 14,800 feet (4,500 metres) deep, defined by oceanic rises and often marked by ranges of abyssal hills. There are also narrow oceanic trenches with high relief, such as the South Sandwich Trench on the eastern side of the South Sandwich Islands. Other relief features include oceanic plateaus that rise from the oceanic basins to depths of less than 6,650 feet (2,000 metres) below sea level and form rather flat regions, which are often covered by relatively thick sedimentary deposits. The most extensive such plateau is the Campbell, or New Zealand, Plateau, which rises southeast of New Zealand and extends southward beyond the Campbell Islands.
The flow of currents in the Southern Ocean is complex. Water cooled by cold air, outgoing radiation, and katabatic winds off of the Antarctic continent sinks and flows northward along the ocean bottom and is replaced at the surface by an equal volume of warmer water flowing south from the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. The meeting point of the two is the Antarctic Convergence, where conditions favour the development of phytoplankton, consisting of diatoms and other single-celled plants. The ocean's most important organism in the higher food chain is the small, shrimplike krill. Animals on the sea bottom of the near-shore zone include the sessile hydrozoans, corals, sponges, and bryozoans, as well as the foraging, crablike sea spiders and isopods, the annelid worm polychaete, echinoids, starfish, and a variety of crustaceans and mollusks. At the sea bottom there are also eelpouts, sea snails, rat-tailed fishes, and codlike fishes. Rare nonbony types of fish include hagfish and skates. Many species of deep-sea fish are known south of the Antarctic Convergence, but only three, a barracuda and two lantern fishes, seem to be confined to this zone.
Southern Ocean: new speciesScientists searching for new species of sea life in the Southern Ocean. Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn, Managing Editor.
The seas around Antarctica have often been likened to the moat around a fortress. The turbulent "Roaring Forties" and "Furious Fifties" lie in a circumpolar storm track and a westerly oceanic current zone commonly called the West Wind Drift, or Circumpolar Current.…
Atlantic Ocean: Deepwater currents
In the Antarctic region, bottom water with a temperature of about 31 °F (− 0.6 °C) and salinity of 34.6 parts per thousand is formed by the sinking of water from the continental shelf. The temperature of this water is so low that its density is higher…
ocean basin: Evolution of the ocean basins through plate movements
…and the opening of the Southern Ocean as the southern continents moved north away from Antarctica.…
sea ice: The emerging impacts of recent changes to sea ice
Whaling records suggest that Antarctic sea ice extent decreased by approximately 25 percent between the mid-1950s and early 1970s, whereas ice core samples suggest a 20 percent decrease in sea ice extent since 1950. Since then, remote sensing data have indicated an increase in Antarctic sea ice extent parallel…
Indian Ocean, body of salt water covering approximately one-fifth of the total ocean area of the world. It is the smallest, geologically youngest, and physically most complex of the world's three major oceans. It stretches for more than 6,200 miles (10,000 km) between the southern tips of Africa…
More About Southern Ocean
major reference
In Antarctica: The surrounding seas
characteristics of water mass
In water mass
distribution of oceans
In ocean: Relative distribution of the oceans
evolution of ocean basins
In ocean basin: Evolution of the ocean basins through plate movements
exploration by Cook
In James Cook: Voyages and discoveries
hydrology of Atlantic Ocean
In Atlantic Ocean: Deepwater currents
In ocean current: Thermohaline circulation
In sea ice: The emerging impacts of recent changes to sea ice
In ultraviolet radiation
Antarctic Convergence
Antarctic Circumpolar Current
Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot
Columbia University - Lamount-Doherty Earth Observatory - Antarctic
Maps of World - Antarctic Ocean
CIA - The World Factbook - Southern Ocean
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Southern Ocean - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
Southern Ocean - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
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