The fifth ocean will be added to the maps – Novinky.cz

Until now, only the waters around Antarctica were identified on maps as the foothills of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, but National Geographic has now sanctified the opinions of many experts that the Southern Ocean deserves geographical independence. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has been using the name Southern Ocean since 2000.

“Scientists have been talking about the Southern Ocean for a long time. But due to the lack of international consensus, we have not officially recognized the name. There was a touch of geoscience in it,” said Alex Tate, a National Geographic representative.

The northern boundary of the Southern Ocean would be between 50 and 62 degrees south on the maps, but it would no longer include the Drake Strait between Cape Horn in South America and southern Shetland, or the Scotia Sea near the Antarctic Peninsula.

Unlike the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic oceans, the Southern Ocean is not bounded by land, but by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Thanks to him, the waters around Antarctica have other properties that are important for thousands of specific species.