Southern Ocean [in 'State of the Climate in 2014]

• Published in: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
• Main Authors: Meredith, MP, Mazloff, M, Sallee, J-B, Newman, L, Wahlin, A, Williams, MJM, Naviera Garabato, AC, Swart, S, Montiero, P, Mata, MM, Schmidtko, S
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Amer Meteorological Soc 2015
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Oceanography; Physical oceanography; Meredith; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1175/2015BAMSStateoftheClimate.1; https://doi.org/10.1175/2016BAMSStateoftheClimate.1; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/114621

The Southern Ocean (oceans poleward of 60S)exerts a disproportionately strong influence on globalclimate, so determining its changing state is of keyimportance in understanding the planetary-scalesystem (Meredith et al. 2013). This is a consequenceof the connectedness of the Southern Ocean, whichlinks the other major ocean basins and is a site ofstrong lateral fluxes of climatically important tracers(Lumpkin and Speer 2007). It is also a consequenceof processes occurring within the Southern Ocean,including the vigorous overturning circulation thatleads to the formation of new water masses (Marshalland Speer 2012), and to the strong exchange of carbon,heat, and other climatically relevant propertiesat the ocean surface (Salle et al. 2012). However, determiningthe state of the Southern Ocean in a givenyear is even more problematic than for other ocean basins, due to the paucity of observations (see Sidebar6.2). Nonetheless, using the limited data available,some key aspects of the state of the Southern Oceanin 2014 can be ascertained.