Southern polar atmospheric region

Because of the rotation of the Earth and because of the warm equatorial and cool polar regions, the atmosphere divides itself into six regions (roughly corresponding to the climatic zones). These atmospheric regions are called the northern and southern Polar, Ferrel, and Hadley cells (so called because they are roll cells ) see Figure 3.2. This division of the atmosphere tends to slow the mixing... 

Within the polar oceans involved in deep water formation, certain regions are more important than others. The Antarctic Zone, the most polar region in the Southern Ocean, is involved in the formation of both deep and intermediate-depth waters, making this region important to the atmosphere/ocean CO2 balance. The quantitative effect of the Subantarctic Zone on atmospheric CO2 is less certain, depending on the degree to which the nutrient status of the Subantarctic surface influences the preformed nutrient concentration of newly formed subsurface water (Antarctic Intermediate Water and Subantarctic mode water), but its significance is probably much less than that of the Antarctic. 

In remote regions of the open ocean that receive little atmospheric input, the vertical transport of iron-rich deep waters is particularly important [73,156]. The primary source of iron to the Fe-limited Southern Ocean is entrainment of Fe-enriched water during deep winter mixing, augmented by the summer upwelling of circumpolar deep water at the Polar Front and the southern front of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current [119,155,157]. 

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