Southern Ocean

Also known as Antarctic Ocean, Great Southern Ocean, South Polar Ocean

ocean around Antarctica

AI overview

The Southern Ocean is the body of water that surrounds Antarctica, making it the world's southernmost ocean. It matters because it plays a crucial role in global climate and ocean circulation systems, and it supports unique marine ecosystems and wildlife found nowhere else on Earth.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The Antarctic Ocean, as delineated by the draft 4th edition of the International Hydrographic Organization's Limits of Oceans and Seas (2002) A general delineation of the Antarctic Convergence, sometimes used by scientists as the demarcation of the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of 21,960,000 km (8,480,000 mi), it is the second-smallest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, and larger than the Arctic Ocean.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Southern Ocean” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.