Southern Ocean Freshwater Flux (SOFF) once plays an important role in the evolvement of paleoclimate. The Antarctic ice-melting event makes SOFF become the focus of climatologists′ attention. Existing research results in various ocean-atmosphere coupled models are comprehensively analyzed based on three aspects: the impact of SOFF on global thermohaline circulation and sea-level change and the propagation path of anomalous signal induced by SOFF. A wide range of different viewpoints on the SOFF are summarized; controversial questions are discussed and valuable research directions in the future are suggested. Furthermore, a perspective on the research prospect of this topic under global warming is provided.

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