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The figure below displays a 3-D global overturning diagram (from Lumpkin and Speer, 2006), which illustrates some of the key roles the Southern Ocean plays in the climate system. The Southern Ocean buffers the rest of the world from the frigid conditions of the Antarctic continent, while meridional overturning across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the mechanism for the exchange of heat, carbon dioxide and other climate anomalies from the surface to the deep World Ocean