By Wilson Wong - NBC News
National Geographic announced on Tuesday the official recognition of the sea that surrounds Antarctica as the fifth ocean on the planet, baptized as Austral.
It is the first time in more than a century that this organization has redrawn ocean maps, which have historically only included four: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic.
"The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but since there was never an international agreement, we never officially recognized it," said Alex Tait, a geographer at the National Geographic Society.
"We've always labeled it, but we've done it slightly differently [to other oceans]," Tait said, "this change was the last step in saying that we want to recognize it for its ecological separation."
The Southern Ocean stretches from the coast of Antarctica to 60 degrees south latitude, excluding the Drake Pass and the Scotia Sea, according to National Geographic.
This new body of water is the second smallest on the planet after the Arctic Ocean.
The waters surrounding the southern continent have unique ecological characteristics, including unique patterns such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), according to the organization.
ACC makes the waters bordering this area cooler and slightly less salty than those in the north, helping to transport heat to the rest of the world and store carbon deep in the ocean.
This quirk has a crucial impact on the planet, National Geographic explained.
The decision to add a fifth ocean falls outside of the guidelines of the International Hydrographic Organization, traditionally in charge of maritime mapping and determining new official names.
This institution has not yet accepted the proposal that was presented in 2000 to include the Southern Ocean on the map, according to the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, for its acronym in English).
Most countries, including the US government, already recognized this body of water anyway.
[The remains of the Chinese rocket disintegrate on its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and fall into the Indian Ocean]
National Geographic hopes that this decision will have a great impact in the field of education: "Students learn information about the oceanic world through the oceans that are studied," he said, "if the Southern Ocean is not included, then they do not learn its characteristics and how important it is "for the planet.