The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the only oceanic flow system of large scale bearing similarity to the atmospheric zonal circulation. There is not only the obvious geometrical similarity - the zonal unboundedness of a current reaching all around the earth - , there are also deeper dynamical correspondences. Though the forcing is different, the dynamical balance of the zonal atmospheric flow and the ACC resides substantially on the excitation of and interaction with synoptic-scale eddies and the intricate correlation of the large-scale pressure field with respect to the underlying topography in shaping what is known as mountain drag in the atmospheric system and bottom form drag (or stress) in the oceanic case.
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