FEATURE CHARACTERISTICS: Southern Ocean
Proposal submitted to the U.S. Geographic Board of Names 
David M. Karl, University of Hawaii

Southern Ocean is the term generally adopted by British scientists, but as yet
not universally agreed, for the circumpolar body of water lying N of the
Antarctic Continent, the N limits of which are not precisely defined but
approximately Latitude 55 degrees S (The Antarctic Pilot, 1974).  Its
zonation is based primarily on the distribution of physical properties
(temperature and salinity) and major ocean current systems (Foster, 1984).  A
dominant feature is the existence of a quasi-stationary front, the Antarctic
Convergence (AC; also known as the Polar Front), which defines the boundary
between the cold Antarctic surface water and the warmer sub-Antarctic waters
to the north (Figure 1).  Consequently the Southern Ocean is defined as the
body of water that lies south of the AC.  By that definition, its surface area
is 36 x 10E+06 km2, approximately one-tenth that of the world oceans (Laws,
1985).  On the basis of its characteristically steep temperature gradient, the
AC is also considered to be an important biogeographical boundary (Deacon,
1982), but it is clearly not a barrier to the exchange of nutrients or biomass
(G. Hempel, 1985).

A recent survey of the Arctic and Antarctic Regions CD-ROM which contains
812,000 citations to the literature from 11 data bases indicated that Southern
Ocean (7,141 references) was favored over Antarctic ocean (275 references); a
grater than 25:1 preference for this survey of the scholarly literature.  For
papers published in English containing the term "Southern Ocean," there has
been a five-fold increase from the period 1960-69 (62 references) to the
period 1990-97 (321 references).  The earliest scientific paper in English
appears to be: 1962 Sayed Z. El-Sayed "Study of primary production in Drake
Passage (Southern Ocean)," a publication from Texas A&M University.  These data
were provided to be my Guy Guthridge of the NSF's Office of Polar Programs.
Clearly the term "Southern Ocean" is in broad use despite the fact that it is
not yet an official listing in the U.S. Board of Geographic Names.

Caption to Figure 1:  Map of Antarctica showing the portions of the Antarctic
Convergence, the summer and winter extents of pack ice, and the major
continental ice shelves.  The Southern Ocean is defined as the body of water
south of the position of the Antarctic Convergence.  This map was published by
Karl (1993) as redrawn from Deacon (1982) and Crary (1962).

References:

The Antarctic Pilot: Comprising the Coasts of Antarctica and all Islands
Southward of the Usual Route of Vessels, Fourth Edition. 1974.  The
Hydrographer of the Navy, England.

Crary, A.P. 1962.  The Antarctic.  Scientific American 207: 1-16.

Deacon, G.E.R. 1982. Physical and biological zonation in the Southern Ocean.
Deep-Sea Research 29: 1-15.

Foster, T.D. 1984.  The marine environment.  Pages 345-371 in R.M. Laws (ed.),
Antarctic Ecology, vol. 2. Academic Press, London.

Hempel, G. 1985. Antarctic marine food webs.  Pages 266-270 in W.R. Siegried,
P.R. Condy and R.M. Laws (eds.), Antarctic Nutrient Cycles and Food Webs.
Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

Karl, D.M. 1992.  Microbial processes in the Southern Oceans.  Pages 1-63 in
E.I. Friedmann (ed.), Antarctic Microbiology.  wiley-Liss, New York.

Laws, R.M. 1985.  Introduction: Antarctic biology, 1974-1983.  Pages 1-3 in
W.R. Siegried, P.R. Condy and R.M. Laws (eds.), Antarctic Nutrient Cycles and
Food Webs.  Springer-Verlag, Berlin.