Clean Ships, Clean Ports, Clean Oceans: Controlling Garbage and Plastic Wastes at Sea (1995)
Chapter: Antarctic Ocean
APPENDIX E
Characteristics of Annex V Special Areas
excerpts1 from:
An Analysis of Proposed Shipborne Waste Handling
Practices Aboard United States Navy Vessels
R. L. Swanson, R. R. Young, and S. S. Ross
Marine Sciences Research Center
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, New York
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPECIAL AREAS
Antarctic Ocean
The East Wind Drift (attributed to the prevailing easterly winds) is a westward-flowing coastal current around most of the continent. Further north, the Southern Ocean is dominated by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This strong current flows in an eastward direction between about latitude 40°S and latitude 60°S. Surface flow is driven primarily by the frictional stress of the westerly winds in the region. This stress, together with the Coriolis force, contributes a northward component to the surface current, resulting in the formation of fronts. Below the surface layer, the density structure is in geostrophic balance with the circulation (Pickard and Emery, 1990).
There are three major basins in the Antarctic Ocean: the Atlantic-Indian-Antarctic Basin, the Eastern Indian-Antarctic Basin (also referred to as the Australian-Antarctic Basin or Knox Basin), and the Pacific Antarctic Basin (or Bellingshausen Basin). There is also a single deep-sea trench, the South Sand-
