Major ocean currents. False-colour map of the world, showing the major ocean currents. These are seen as red patches. At top left is the Kiro Shio current off the coast of Japan. At lower left is the West Australian current. At top centre, off the coast of North America, is the Gulf Stream: its southern hemishpere counterpart, the Brazil current, is at bottom centre. Extending below Africa's Cape of Good Hope at bottom right is the Agulhas current. This image was compiled from radar altimetry data gathered by the US Navy's Geosat satellite in 1987-1988.