A paper published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 9, 2012, reported the results of computer models on ocean currents affected by the closing and opening of the Bering Strait, effects of which might have a role in global climate control.
The Arctic Ocean and the location of the Bering Strait. Base map: Uwe Dedering
The Bering Strait is an open stretch of water that separates Russia and Alaska: during the Pleistocene era, when glaciers covered much of the northern hemisphere of our planet, the Bering Strait was closed, and a land mass called by scholars "Beringia" was revealed by the drop in sea levels. Long-standing archaeological theory is that the original colonists of the Americas traveled along this land mass while leaving Siberia.
What the new research seems to show is that while the Bering Strait was blocked, it interfered with oceanic currents that mix the Atlantic and Pacific oceans under the Arctic ice cap, and that interference may have caused some of the abrupt climate changes in the past.
- Read more about the research on the Bering Strait
Hu A, Meehl GA, Han W, Timmermann A, Otto-Bliesner B, Liu Z, Washington WM, Large W, Abe-Ouchi A, Kimoto M et al. . 2012. Role of the Bering Strait on the hysteresis of the ocean conveyor belt circulation and glacial climate stability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: in press.
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