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Those familiar with the Southern Ocean, the body of water encircling Antarctica, know it’s unlike any other. “Anyone who has been there will struggle to explain what's so mesmerizing about it, but they'll all agree that the glaciers are bluer, the air colder, the mountains more intimidating, and the landscapes more captivating than anywhere else you can go,” says Seth Sykora-Bodie, a marine scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a National Geographic Explorer. Since National Geographic began making maps in 1915, it has recognized four oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. Starting on June...

The 130-year-old exploration and education non-profit marked World Oceans Day on Tuesday by declaring that the waters around Antarctica will now be known as the Southern Ocean — the planet’s fifth ocean. “The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognized it,” National Geographic Society Geographer Alex Tait said. “It’s sort of geographic nerdiness in some ways,” Tait said. “We’ve always labeled it, but we labeled it slightly differently (than other oceans). This change was taking the last step and saying we want to recognize it because of its...

“We think we may have found the answer. Increased circulation in the Southern Ocean allowed carbon dioxide to leak into the atmosphere, working to warm the planet,” said Princeton University’s Professor Daniel Sigman, co-author of the study. For years, researchers have known that growth and sinking of phytoplankton pumps carbon dioxide deep into the ocean, a process often referred to as the ‘biological pump.’ “The biological pump is driven mostly by the low latitude ocean but is undone closer to the poles, where carbon dioxide is vented back to the atmosphere by the rapid exposure of deep waters to the...

Enlarge ImageIn and out. Driven by winds, the Southern Ocean's currents (blue globe) transport CO2 (red) northward.Credit: T. Ito et al., Nature 463 (2010) Much of the carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere goes south, literally. Researchers using new supercomputer models have described for the first time how the Southern Ocean sucks the greenhouse gas out of the air and then shuttles it into the deep sea far from the Antarctic. The findings should give climate scientists a better understanding of this critical component of Earth's carbon cycle. The carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere ends up several places....

Pristine seascapeA previously unexplored section of Antarctic sea floor lured marine scientists and their vessel Polarstern to the frozen continent for a voyage of exploration over Christmas and New Year.The trip yielded, said researchers, a wealth of useful information and some undiscovered species.(Image: G Chapelle, IPF/ Alfred Wegener Institute) Unexpected giantAmong the new species was this giant amphipod, a type of crustacean, which researchers caught in baited traps. About 10cm (four inches) long, it is one of the biggest amphipods found in the region.(Image: C d'Udekem, Royal Belgium Institute for Natural Sciences) Key creatureAlready well known to science is...