Empirical Earth · Space, Satellites & the Edges of the Map

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current — water that goes all the way around

The claim

“Antarctica is the rim of the disc, an ice wall holding the oceans in.”

What is measured

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current carries somewhere between 130 and 175 million cubic meters of water past any given point every second, which is on the order of 135 times the flow of every river on Earth combined. It flows eastward around Antarctica and closes on itself. It is measured from ships, from moored instruments and from floats, by many nations, with no satellite and no photograph involved.

What would show this is wrong

a physical account of an eastward current along the inner face of a rim wall that returns to its starting longitude, naming what drives it and where the water comes back from; or moored measurements at several longitudes in the Southern Ocean showing the flow does not continue past them.

Sources

  1. Donohue, K. A., Tracey, K. L., Watts, D. R., Chidichimo, M. P. & Chereskin, T. K. (2016). Mean Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport measured in Drake Passage. Geophysical Research Letters link
  2. Xu, X. et al. (2020). Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport through Drake Passage: comparing high-resolution model results to observations. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans. Argues cDrake overestim link
  3. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current as the largest current system in the world ocean. Transport of order 135 Sv through the Drake Passage, roughly 135 times the combined flow of all the world’ link
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