Blooms in South Atlantic Ocean

Credit: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE, Posted on: Wednesday, 29 December 2004, 00:46 CST Download full size image

Off the Atlantic coast of the southern tip of South America, a jet of cold water branches off the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which loops in a continuous eastward-flowing cycle in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. This north-flowing offshoot is called the Malvinas Current or the Falkland Current (because it passes by the Falkland Islands). The Malvinas Current flows northward along the coast of South America until it meets the warm, south-flowing Brazil current, usually within a few degrees north or south of the latitude of the Rio de la Plata, where the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers meet the Atlantic. This pair of images shows the Malvinas Current area of the South Atlantic in two different perspectives on December 6, 2004, based on data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS).

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