Under the influence of prevailing trade winds [tropical easterlies], the north equatorial current and the south equatorial current start from the eastern pacific (west coast of Central America) and traverses a distance of 14,500 km moving from east to west
Counter equatorial current
This raises the level of western pacific (near Indonesia and Australia) ocean by few centimeters.
And this creates a counter-equatorial current which flows between the north equatorial current and the south equatorial current in west east direction
Kuroshio current
The north equatorial current turns northward off the Philippines to form the Kuroshio current.
Most of it lies in the sub-tropical high pressure belt and its northern part is under the influence of westerlies
Oyashio Current and Okhotsk current
There are two more cold currents in the northern Pacific, Oyashio flows across the east coast of Kamchatka Peninsula to merge with the warmer waters of Kuroshio, and the Okhotsk current flows past Sakhlain Islands to merge with the Oyashio current off Hokkaido (Northern Japanese Island)
North-Pacific current
From the south-east coast of Japan, under the influence of prevailing westerlies, the Kuroshio current turns eastwards and moves as the North-Pacific current, reaches the west coast of North America, and bifurcates into two.
Alaska and Californian current
The northern branch flows anti-clockwise along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska and is known as the Alaska current.
The water of this current is relatively warm as compared to the surrounding waters in this zone.
The southern branch of the current moves as a cold current along the west coast of USA and is known as the Californian current.
The Californian current joins the north equatorial current to complete the circuit.
East Australian current
Following the pattern in the northern hemisphere, the south equatorial current flows from east to west and turns southwards as the East Australian current.
It then meets the South pacific current near Tasmania which flows from west to east.
Peru current or Humboldt Current
Reaching the south-western coast of South America, it turns northward as the Peru current.
It is a cold current, which finally feeds the south equatorial current, thus completing the great circuit.
And the zone where Peru Cold current meets the warm equatorial ocean waters is an important fishing zone.,
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