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The Arctic Ocean might have been filled with freshwater during ice ages

A geochemical study of sediments suggests that, during recent glacial periods, the Arctic Ocean was completely isolated from the world ocean, with fresh water filling the basin for thousands of years.
  1. Sharon Hoffmann

    1. Sharon Hoffmann is a palaeoceanographer based in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA.

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The Arctic region is undergoing rapid climatic and environmental change1, so knowledge of its past variability is crucial for understanding modern trends and predicting future ones. Ancient climate conditions and ocean behaviour are often reconstructed by analysing marine sediments. But Arctic sediments can be difficult to interpret, and much is still unknown about how the Arctic Ocean changed during specific glacial and interglacial periods over the past few million years2,3. Writing in Nature, Geibert et al.4 report analyses of an isotope of the element thorium in sea-floor sediments, which suggest that the Arctic Ocean swung between being filled with salt water and fresh water during periods of the two most recent glacials.

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Nature 590, 37-38 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00208-7

References

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