Globalization of the Antarctic seas: Pollution and Climate Change Perspectives

Abstract

The Antarctic continent is entirely surrounded by the Antarctic Ocean alsonamed Southern Ocean, forming a barrier to the movement of organismsinto and out of Antarctica. Therefore, the Antarctic Continent has uniquecharacteristics because of its geographic isolation.It is regarded as one of the remaining environments on the planetwhere human activities have little direct impact. Thus, this region hasbeen considered an ideal observatory for research on global change andenvironmental impacts caused by man (Xuebin et al. 2006).