Change in the Southern Ocean: Responding to Antarctica

Abstract

Antarctica exerts a strong influence on the Southern Ocean, where sea surface temperatures, ocean frontal systems and icebergs respond directly to glacial/interglacial-to millennial-scale changes. These responses, however, can differ between ocean basins, due to differences in basin morphology, circulation and climate. Precisely fifty years ago, in a 3-page letter to Deep-Sea Research, Henry Stommel (1958) highlighted the role played by Ant-arctica in driving the oceans' abyssal cir-culation. Since then, many studies of the present and past ocean have redefined the close links between Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, and their influence on the global ocean and climate. To highlight those links, we briefly review Antarctica's impact on the surface of the Southern Ocean at glacial-interglacial (G-I) and mil-lennial timescales. The Southern Ocean is a sea of su-perlatives. It is dominated by the longest (24,000 km), largest (transport of ~137 10 6 m 3 s -1