National Geographic now recognizes The Southern Ocean
nationalgeographic.com
nationalgeographic.com
I was hoping to see a photo of those blue glaciers, intimidating mountains, and captivating landscapes. And there’s none. (Yes, I know how to Google images of blue glaciers.)
I hope more editors ask the question: based on article text, what photos would a reader likely want to see?
I often have this same thought. "Where's the pictures."
Especially maddening when the headline implies (to me) that there will be pictures that I'll want to see.
That was the first case of something my child learning contradicting my own outdated education. I'm sure there will be plenty more to come.
The funny thing is that it is not like this is some new discovery or new knowledge -- Webster's 1913 dictionary has five oceans: "Ocean: 2. One of the large bodies of water into which the great ocean is regarded as divided, as the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic oceans." https://www.websters1913.com/words/Ocean So you get to feel like you have a more up-to-date education than your grand parents, your kids feel like they have a more up-to-date education than you, and it all is just a cycle of fashion :-P
The 3rd edition of that document, which came out in 1953, lists four oceans - same as Webster's sans the Antarctic: https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_19...
The 4th edition of the document, which has been in draft since 1986, adds the Southern Ocean: https://legacy.iho.int/mtg_docs/com_wg/S-23WG/S-23WG_Misc/Dr...
Asian countries call those one way, European another, the US a different, some countries prefer their own, etc.
As the Wikipedia entry below says e.g.:
"Australasia is a region which comprises Australia, New Zealand, and some neighbouring islands. The term is used in a number of different contexts including geopolitically, physiogeographically, and ecologically where the term covers several slightly different but related regions."
This include continents, which, depending on the context, country, etc can be seen as being anywhere from 4 to 7.
It's a good case study in society's ability to believe things despite the fact that every single individual in the society has direct personal experience falsifying the belief. If you've ever eaten candy, you've experienced the taste of sugar all across your tongue.
It takes only a couple of seconds to run an experiment that conclusively disproves the tongue map. But there it is in the reference books.
> all taste sensations come from all regions of the tongue, although different parts are more sensitive to certain tastes
Give me a break, I'll determine the name for my own culture and how I identify myself, thanks
Then again I don't blame the US for calling itself a continent since United states really isn't a name. Like South Africa isn't a name. Very nebulous now that I think about it. On the other hand, the UK has too many names.
The United States of America is an embodiment of "manifest destiny", which is a declaration of intent to conquer the sovereign people of the continent.
It’s clearly not a grape!!!
It's quite presumptuous to demand the people of another country refer to themselves in a particular way. You are free to call us whatever you want amongst yourselves. We do it with Germany/Deutschland and they don't seem to mind that much. But we're not demanding that they refer to themselves by our name for them.
Not just Americans. In Portuguese, Americans (that is, those from and of the USA) are often called americanos. In French, américain is much more commonly used than États-Unien.
The Spanish meaning of americano that does not include Americans in this way is very unusual among major Western languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_%28word%29#Other_lang.... I don't mean to say that the equivalent of "American" in those languages is the only way to refer to those of the USA, or that equivalents to "USA" and such don't exist. In Portuguese, Italian, and German, however, saying Americano/Americano/Amerikanisch would generally be understood as referring to that of the USA without additional context, as opposed to a Brazilian or Argentinean, in a way that Americano wouldn't in Spanish.
From the outside that can seem the case (understandably). In reality it only has one (UK), and the other terms have different meanings:
- England, Wales, and Scotland are the 'mainland' countries individually
- Great Britain (Britain) is the name for the larger island group that contains those countries
- UK (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is what you get when you add in Northern Ireland
- British Isles is the/a name for both major island groups combined (so that includes the Republic of Ireland)
Not all of these terms are liked by all parties to them (especially British Isles), but they do each have a distinct geographical meaning which often confuses even the locals.
While Mexico is the only such country today other than the USA, it alone is good enough reason for people to avoid using "United Statesians" or the local equivalent thereof to refer to those of the USA. (Even worse is "norteamericanos". Why aren't Canadians and Bahamians constantly marching in the streets to protest against Spanish speakers' use of such a term to refer solely to denizens of the USA?)
The US, on the other hand, is the only country with the word "America" in its name. All the more reason for the use, in every major Western language other than Spanish, of America/American to refer to the US and its inhabitants.
In Spanish, yes. In Portuguese, Americans (that is, those from and of the USA) are often called americanos. In French, américain is much more commonly used than États-Unien.
The Spanish meaning of americano that does not include Americans in this way is very unusual among major Western languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_%28word%29#Other_lang.... I don't mean to say that the equivalent of "American" in those languages is the only way to refer to those of the USA, or that equivalents to "USA" and such don't exist. In Portuguese, Italian, and German, however, saying Americano/Americano/Amerikanisch would generally be understood as referring to that of the USA without additional context, as opposed to a Brazilian or Argentinean, in a way that Americano wouldn't in Spanish.
Continent is a poorly defined term.
FWIW, I don't hate or love the new way, it's just pretty radically different from what I was taught.
I'm pretty sure I've heard of the Southern Ocean before. It also seems a little fishy that this is being heavily promoted by the magazine that (presumably) these 'Nat Geo cartographers' work for.
Is this a PR stunt? Is there an official body that classifies oceans?
Edit:
I guess this bit of the article explains it. There is no new ocean, it's been recognised for a while.
"'The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognized it,' says National Geographic Society Geographer Alex Tait. "
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is the official body which defines the world's oceans. It is an intergovernmental international organization whose members are 94 countries, including all the world's major seagoing powers.
IHO hasn't officially recognised the existence of the Southern Ocean yet, but it is planning to. Part of the hold-up is a dispute with Australia over the boundaries of the Southern Ocean – the IHO wants to put its northern boundary at the 60th parallel south, the Australian government wants to put its northern boundary as the southern Australian coast (which reflects Australian cultural understandings of it.) The other part of the hold-up, is the process of updating the boundaries of the world's oceans is being delayed by some unrelated political issues, such as the "Sea of Japan" naming dispute between Japan and Korea.
But, unlike recognised international bodies such as the IHO, or even national government bodies, National Geographic magazine, or the National Geographic Society, has no formal authority to decide the boundaries of anything, including the world's oceans. So yeah, this is pretty much just PR.
I'm imagining they have a yearly conference and they have an agenda like
* check if there are new oceans
* check if older oceans have gone away
* should we rename the oceans?
* snacks
Lest you think this merely a paper-shuffling exercise, if there's a shipping accident, a huge amount of legal liability rides on the accuracy and up-to-date information in the charts. What these guys do underpins a huge amount of maritime law and international shipping. Definitely one of the really important, useful international orgs.
One out of every ten academics in the field is going to going to disagree with a given naming scheme. Some percentage of these are going to become obsessed with how you've gotten it wrong. They'll publish literal, old school, paper books with ISBN numbers accusing you and your organization of systematic murder of indigenous peoples, then constantly make edits to Wikipedia with their book as proof. It will take a decade or more to get it off Wikipedia because a "fact" with ISBN number trumps everything.
You'll wake up mornings to all caps, incoherent emails from people who sound like mental asylum inmates, but claim to be professor-doctors at distant universities. They hate you. You have ruined science.
You'll have deranged stalkers who unleash hatred on everything you ever write online from this time forward. As you type a blog post or a tweet, you'll hear their screaming voices in your head, commenting on every sentence you write.
Inside your international recognized naming group will be all the pettiness of the triviality of academic politics.
Outside, politicians and national interests will demand that your list be used as a weapon against their enemies. The offices of heads of state will call your boss if there are even rumors of you making a wrong call.
In the end, only a few strong will remain in charge, able to navigate the internal and external foes, able to read the coming storms by the falling of the leaves, and with a superhuman knowledge of the possible reactions the academics and the external powers who matter. If the world is lucky, a few good changes will slip into the list from time to time, provided they don't anger the wrong people. Inconvenient opinions will be silently stonewalled until such a time as world power shifts. The relentless killing knife of evolution will toss away anyone who does not play the game by its rules.
This list you are making isn't about truth. It's about power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan_naming_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Philippine_Sea
...and that's before even getting into maritime boundary/exclusive economic zone disputes.
That's probably why as 57 year old Aussie, I'm wondering why this idea of the Southern Ocean is new. When I first went on a road trip 10 years ago on the Great Ocean Road, what I saw couldn't have been anything other than the Southern Ocean. The Pacific coast was a 1000km away to the east towards Sydney, and the Indian Ocean was what you saw when the sunset over Perth to the Far West.
[1] https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_19...
*Currently living on the Pacific coast - or is it the Coral Sea?
Although I've never stared south from the Great Australian Bight.
[1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1074610331
[2] https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_19...
The latest IHO standard S-23 is edition 3 from 1953 [1] and identifies the waters around Antarctica as either the South Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean or South Atlantic Ocean. Boundaries between the three oceans in the vicinity of Antarctica are approximately [2] the lines south of Cape Agulhas (southern point of the African continent), South East Cape (southern point of Tasmania, Australia) and Cape Horn (southern point of the South American continent).
In addition to the political disputes of more modern times about names and geographic limits, there have historically been problems with determining the real geographic location referred to in historical maps, and problems with naming of points in maps. The first point of the Australian mainland which the Captain James Cook expedition attempted to name as "Point Hicks" was found by later navigators to be over 20km offshore from the mainland in the middle of the ocean[3]. The government in 1970 in celebration of the bicentenary of the Captain James Cook expedition to Australia decided to rename "Cape Everard" to "Point Hicks".
[1] https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_19...
[2] The standard notes that Argentina and Chile were in dispute regarding the southwest limit of the South Atlantic Ocean and eastern limit of the South Pacific Ocean.
A bit of searching shows that this name (in French) was recorded in Freycinet's Map of 1811.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freycinet_Map_of_1811
Personally, I prefer "Great Southern Ocean" over "Southern Ocean", as it captures some of the power and majesty of a wild part of the world. Maybe that should be the compromise: Southern Ocean is below 60 degrees and Great Southern Ocean is the whole thing, right up to the Australian coastline, though it would miss the point that it is great due to its power, not its size?
So yes, probably, this is very much like the difference between North and South America vs a unitary American continent. These distinctions seem academic to some but they're about identity and the placement of a community in the world to others.
I thought in Latin America they say there are 3 Americas: north, central, and south.
I think a boundary based on continental features makes more sense. So a boundary on great circles from, roughly, Windy Harbour Australia, to Cape Town, to Isla Hermite, then back to Tasmania.
Doesn't the Indian Ocean also touch three others? The map shows it touches the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern, and it doesn't touch the Arctic.
The Atlantic and Pacific both touch four other oceans.
It's always possible to add more qualifications, like "it is the only penguin-containing ocean completely south of the Equator to touch three others and to completely embrace a continent rather than being embraced by them.
Another Aussie here letting you all know we've been calling in the southern ocean since before I can remember :)
But much like the twelve Olympians or the seven wonders of the world, there have always been more individual seas than the collective count would imply.
In real terms, drawing a line through the middle of the ocean and calling the ocean by different names according to what side of the line it's on is pretty ridiculous. You want to name regions that are different in some important way from other regions.