Abstract
RECENT climate records from ice cores and deep-sea sediments suggest that there has been considerable climate variability in the North Atlantic region over the past 250,000 years1–3. Much of this variability may be linked to changes in thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic ocean4–6. Model studies7–9 have demonstrated that changes in the flux of fresh water to the ocean, resulting from changes in atmospheric transport or the waxing and waning of ice sheets, can have a significant effect on the thermohaline circulation. Here we present model simulations showing that increased flow of fresher North Pacific water through the Bering Strait into the northern North Atlantic can also affect the thermohaline circulation, by suppressing North Atlantic Deep Water formation; however, decreased flow does not necessarily cause deep-water formation to begin again. In our model, flow through the Bering Strait depends on eustatic sea level and the salinity difference between the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. We suggest that the higher sea level during the last inter glacial period10, leading to greater flow through the Bering Strait, may have made the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation more sensitive than it is at present to fluctuations in the hydrological cycle, which may explain recent observations1 indicating that climate variability was greater then than it is today.
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Shaffer, G., Bendtsen, J. Role of the Bering Strait in controlling North Atlantic ocean circulation and climate. Nature 367, 354–357 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/367354a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/367354a0
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