more than the Southern Ocean latitudes. The Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties blow around Antarctica and drive the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As a result of the Ekman Transport, water gets transported northward from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (on the left-hand side while facing the stream direction). Using a lagrangian approach, water parcels passing through the Drake Passage can be followed in their journey in the oceans. Around 23 Sv of water is transported from the Drake Passage to the equator, mainly in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. To make a blunt comparison, this value is not far from the Gulf Stream transport in the Florida Strait (33 Sv), but is an order of magnitude lower than the transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (100–150 Sv). Water transported from the Southern Ocean to the Northern Hemisphere contributes to the global mass balance and permits the meridional circulation across the oceans. Several studies linked the current shape of the Drake Passage to an effective Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Models have been run with different widths and depths of the Drake Passage, and consequent changes in the global oceanic circulation and temperature distribution have been analysed. It appears that the “conveyor belt” of the global Thermohaline Circulation appears only in presence of an open Drake Passage, subject to wind forcing. In particular, with a closed Drake Passage, there is no North Atlantic Deep Water cell, and no Antarctic Circumpolar Current (obviously, as Antarctica is not completely surrounded by water). With a shallower Drake Passage, a weak Antarctic Circumpolar Current appears, but still no North Atlantic Deep Water cell. It has also been shown that present-day distribution of dissolved inorganic carbon can be obtained only with an open Drake Passage. In short, not only the Drake Passage must be open to allow the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to flow around Antarctica, but also the current topography is the only one that allows enough transport from the Southern Ocean to sustain a North Atlantic Deep Water cell, thus allowing a sufficiently strong thermohaline circulation. To make a connection with the global surface temperature, an open (and sufficiently deep) Drake Passage cools the Southern Ocean and warms the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Indeed, the isolation of Antarctica by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (that can flow only with an open Drake Passage) is credited by many researchers with causing the glaciation of the continent