For a long time, observations have been pointing out that the Kuroshio in the
North Paciffc Ocean displays bimodal meandering behavior of the southern coast
of Japan. For the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean, weakly and strongly
deffected paths near the coast of South Carolina have been observed. This suggests
that bimodal behavior may occur in the Gulf Stream as well, although less
pronounced than in the Kuroshio. Evidence from a high resolution ocean general
circulation model (OGCM) and intermediate complexity models is given to support
the hypothesis that multiple mean paths of both the Kuroshio and the Gulf
Stream are dynamically possible. These paths are found as multiple steady states
in an intermediate complexity shallow-water model. In the OGCM, transitions
between similar mean paths are found, with the patterns having similarity to the
ones in the observations as well. To study whether atmospheric noise can induce
transitions between the multiple steady states, a stochastic component is added
to the annual mean wind stress forcing in the intermediate complexity model and
differences between the transition behavior in the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio are
considered