A report on Southern Ocean and Ross Sea

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 International Hydrographic Organization's delineation of the "Southern Ocean" has moved steadily southwards since the original 1928 edition of its Limits of Oceans and Seas.

"Southern Ocean" as alternative to the Aethiopian Ocean, 18th century

Area inside the black line indicates the area constituting the Pacific Ocean prior to 2002; darker blue areas are its informal current borders following the recreation of the Southern Ocean and the reinclusion of marginal seas

Continents and islands of the Southern Ocean

A map of Australia's official interpretation of the names and limits of oceans and seas around Australia

1564 Typus Orbis Terrarum, a map by Abraham Ortelius showed the imagined link between the proposed continent of Antarctica and South America.

Portrait of Edmund Halley by Godfrey Kneller (before 1721)

"Terres Australes" (sic) label without any charted landmass

James Weddell's second expedition in 1823, depicting the brig and the cutter Beaufroy

Famous official portrait of Captain James Cook who proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. "He holds his own chart of the Southern Ocean on the table and his right hand points to the east coast of Australia on it."

USS Vincennes at Disappointment Bay, Antarctica in early 1840.

1911 South Polar Regions exploration map

Frank Hurley, As time wore on it became more and more evident that the ship was doomed ( trapped in pack ice), National Library of Australia.

MS Explorer in Antarctica in January 1999. She sank on 23 November 2007 after hitting an iceberg.

Seas that are parts of the Southern Ocean

An iceberg being pushed out of a shipping lane by (L to R) USS Burton Island (AGB-1), USS Atka (AGB-3), and USS Glacier (AGB-4) near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, 1965

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the strongest current system in the world oceans, linking the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins.

Orca (Orcinus orca) hunting a Weddell seal in the Southern Ocean

A wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) on South Georgia

Fish of the Notothenioidei suborder, such as this young icefish, are mostly restricted to the Antarctic and Subantarctic

Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) are the most southerly of Antarctic mammals.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are a keystone species of the food web.

A female warty squid (Moroteuthis ingens)

An adult and sub-adult Minke whale are dragged aboard the Japanese whaling vessel

Severe cracks in an ice pier in use for four seasons at McMurdo Station slowed cargo operations in 1983 and proved a safety hazard.

The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth.

- Ross Sea

Explorer James Clark Ross passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea and discovered Ross Island (both of which were named for him) in 1841.

- Southern Ocean

7 related topics with Alpha

Antarctica

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Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent.

A speculative representation of Antarctica labelled as 'Terra Australis Incognito' on Jan Janssonius's Zeekaart van het Zuidpoolgebied (1657), Het Scheepvaartmuseum

Eastern Antarctica is to the right of the Transantarctic Mountains and Western Antarctica is to the left.

Vinson Massif from the northwest, the highest peak in Antarctica

Glossopteris sp. leaf from the Permian of Antarctica

Pine Island Glacier, photographed in November 2011

Image of the largest hole in the ozone layer recorded, in September 2006

Orange lichen (Caloplaca) growing on the Yalour Islands, Wilhelm Archipelago

Refuse littering the shoreline at Bellingshausen Station on King George Island, photographed in 1992

A whale in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary

Adélie Land, depicted by Jules Dumont d'Urville in his Voyage au Pôle Sud (1846)

The Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909 (left to right): Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams

The "ceremonial" South Pole, at Amundsen–Scott Station

The U.S. delegate Herman Phleger signs the Antarctic Treaty in December 1959.

The cruise ship Silver Cloud in Wilhelmina Bay

An aerial view of McMurdo Station, the largest research station in Antarctica

An Antarctic meteorite, Allan Hills 84001 on display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole.

Antarctica is divided into West Antarctica and East Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains, which stretch from Victoria Land to the Ross Sea.

Colossal squid

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Part of the family Cranchiidae.

This specimen, caught in early 2007, is the largest cephalopod ever recorded. Here it is shown alive during capture, with the delicate red skin still intact and the mantle characteristically inflated.

The specimen on display at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

It is known to inhabit the circumantarctic Southern Ocean.

Colossal squid are also sighted often near Cooperation Sea and less near Ross Sea because of its predator and competitor, the Antarctic toothfish.

Antarctic toothfish

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The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) is a species of notothen native to the Southern Ocean.

It is mainly caught in the Ross Sea in the austral summer, but has also been recorded from Antarctic coastal waters south of the Indian Ocean sector, in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula, and near the South Sandwich Islands.

Emperor penguin

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Tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica.

Mounted skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History

Emperor penguin jumping out of the water in Antarctica

An emperor penguin colony on Snow Hill Island

Emperor penguin attacked by a leopard seal

The egg of the emperor penguin. It is 13.5 × 9.5 cm and vaguely pear-shaped. Muséum de Toulouse

Two Adélie penguins and an emperor penguin at SeaWorld San Diego

The Cape Crozier colony on the Ross Sea shrank drastically between the first visits by the Discovery Expedition in 1902–03 and the later visits by the Terra Nova Expedition in 1910–11; it was reduced to a few hundred birds, and may have come close to extinction due to changes in the position of the ice shelf.

The emperor penguin searches for prey in the open water of the Southern Ocean, in either ice-free areas of open water or tidal cracks in pack ice.

Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

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Part of the Antarctic Treaty System.

It was established in large part to concerns that an increase in krill catches in the Southern Ocean could have a serious impact on populations of other marine life which are dependent upon krill for food.

In 2010, a proposal for an MPA in the Ross Sea were put forward by both the US and New Zealand.

James Clark Ross

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British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer known for his explorations of the Arctic, participating in two expeditions led by his uncle Sir John Ross, and four led by Sir William Parry, and, in particular, for his own Antarctic expedition from 1839 to 1843.

Illustration of the discovery of the North Magnetic Pole from Robert Huish's 1835 book.

Ross expedition in the Antarctic, 1847, by John Carmichael

"E.I. 1849": and, inscribed by a crew member of the Ross expedition on Somerset Island

James Clark Ross, depicted in 1850 by Stephen Pearce

En route to the Southern Ocean, Ross established magnetic measurement stations in St. Helena, Cape Town, and Kerguelen before arriving in Hobart in early 1840 and establishing a further permanent station with the help of governor John Franklin before waiting for the summer season.

Shortly after, James Ross discovered the Ross Sea and Victoria Land, charting 900km of new coastline, reaching Possession Island on 12 January and Franklin Island on 27 January (which Ross named after John Franklin ).

Ocean gyre

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Any large system of circulating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements.

Subpolar circulation in the southern hemisphere is dominated by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, due to the lack of large landmasses breaking up the Southern Ocean.

There are minor gyres in the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea, the Weddell Gyre and Ross Gyre, which circulate in a clockwise direction.