World Ocean

The World Ocean, world ocean, or global ocean, is the interconnected system of the Earth's oceanic (or marine) waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere, covering almost 71% of the Earth's surface, with a total volume of 1.332 billion cubic kilometers.

The unity and continuity of the World Ocean, with relatively free interchange among its parts, is of fundamental importance to oceanography. It is divided into a number of principal oceanic areas that are delimited by the continents and various oceanographic features: these divisions are the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean (rarely considered a sea of the Atlantic), Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Southern Ocean (typically reckoned instead as just the southern portions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans). In turn, oceanic waters are interspersed by many smaller seas, gulfs, and bays.

A global ocean has existed in one form or another on Earth for eons, and the notion dates back to classical antiquity (in the form of Oceanus). The contemporary concept of the World Ocean was coined by the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky in the early 20th century to describe what is basically a solitary, continuous ocean that covers and encircles most of the Earth.

If viewed from the southern pole of Earth, the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans can be seen as lobes extending northward from the Southern Ocean. Farther north, the Atlantic opens into the Arctic Ocean, which is connected to the Pacific by the Bering Strait, forming a continuous expanse of water.

• The Pacific Ocean, the largest of the oceans, also reaches northward from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. It spans the gap between Australia, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. The Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic south of South America at Cape Horn.
• The Atlantic Ocean, the second largest, extends from the Southern Ocean between South America, Africa, North America and Europe, to the Arctic Ocean. The Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean south of Africa at Cape Agulhas.
• The Indian Ocean extends northward from the Southern Ocean to India, between Africa and Australia. The Indian Ocean joins the Pacific Ocean to the east, near Australia.
• The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the five. It joins the Atlantic near Greenland and Iceland and joins the Pacific at the Bering Strait. It overlies the North Pole, touching North America in the Western hemisphere and Scandinavia and Siberia in the Eastern hemisphere. The Arctic Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which varies according to the season.
• The Southern Ocean is a proposed ocean surrounding Antarctica, dominated by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, generally the ocean south of sixty degrees south latitude. The Southern Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which varies according to the season. The Southern Ocean is the second smallest of the five named oceans.

The approximate shape of the World Ocean can for most purposes be treated as constant, although in fact it is not: continental drift continually changes its structure.