Bimodal behavior of the Kuroshio and the Gulf Stream

For a long time, observations have indicated that the Kuroshio in the North Pacific Ocean displays bimodal meandering behavior off the southern coast of Japan. For the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean, weakly and strongly deflected 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 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.