The South Atlantic Current is also called the West Wind Drift

The South Atlantic Current is also called the West Wind Drift. This is a very strong cold current flowing in the west wind belt towards the east in the South Atlantic Ocean.

In fact, the South Atlantic Current bending towards the left in the eastern part of the ocean completes the anticlockwise circulation in the South Atlantic.

As a matter of fact, the South Atlantic Current is a continuation of the Brazil current and the Falkland current which have turned towards east and northeast respectively.

At this point, it would be pertinent to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that in the southern hemisphere the currents deflect to the left of their path of motion. Between 40° and 60°S latitudes the westerlies blow with a very high velocity.

As the readers might be aware, this is the belt of Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Scratching Sixties. So under the stress of the westerlies, the currents flow from west to east.

However, due to the presence of the Antarctic intermediate water mass, the South Atlantic Current is rather shallow. It is interesting to learn that because of the preponderance of water in these latitudes, this type of current is invariably found in all the southern oceans.

In the eastern part of the South Atlantic Ocean, a branch of cold water is deflected towards the coast of West Africa, where its velocity near the southern tip of the continent is as much as about 15 nautical miles per day.

It should be borne in mind that in connection with the surface circulation of the South Atlantic Ocean, the loss of surface water to the northern hemisphere is to the tune of 6 million m³/second due to the northward displacement of the climatic equator.