CANBERRA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have returned from a two-month Antarctic voyage with comprehensive data on how the Southern Ocean is driving global climate patterns.

After 60 days on board the research vessel Investigator, the team from national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the government-funded Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP) docked in Western Australia on Tuesday.

During their 12,000-km voyage, 39 scientists collected data from up to 6 km below the ocean surface to low-lying clouds 2 km high to find links between physics, aerosols, plankton, clouds and chemistry and the Earth's changing climate.

"The work reveals how microbes in the ocean control the brightness of clouds in the sky, how melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is altering deep ocean currents that extend around the planet, and how much iron is available to support the growth of marine plants," Steve Rintoul, voyage co-chief scientist from the CSIRO and AAPP, said in a media release on Monday.

"This critical research into physics, biology and chemistry provides new insights into how the ocean, atmosphere, ice and marine life are interconnected and how these interactions regulate climate."

Researchers deployed 22 robotic floats during the voyage -- the longest in the 10 years of the research vessel -- 12 of which sampled the full depth of the ocean and 10 with extra sensors for the 2 km below the surface.

The team collected the first comprehensive measurements of iron and other trace elements in the specific part of the Southern Ocean and new observations allowing for the tracking of how much carbon dioxide the Southern Ocean is removing from the atmosphere and storing in the deep ocean.

Using special onboard incubation tanks, they also conducted the first experiments measuring how marine biota affect the emission of cloud-seeding gasses. Enditem

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