Beringia: Impact on paleoclimates of northeast Asia and North Pacific during Last Pleistocene glaciation

• Published in: Quaternary international 2011-05, Vol.237 (1), p.32-38
• Main Authors: Pushkar, Vladimir S., Cherepanova, Marina V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: air flow; Bacillariophyceae; climate; cold; energy; glaciation; glaciers; ice; landscapes; Marine; pollen; refrigerators; snowpack; topography
• ISSN: 1040-6182; 1873-4553
• DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.01.010

The Beringian land bridge that emerged repeatedly during ice ages was of great importance in the energy and matter redistribution within the “continent – ocean” system and had a pronounced effect on air streams and surface marine currents in the North Pacific region. The paper considers an important and still unsettled paleogeographic problem of the Arctic Northeast of Asia: could Beringia have been covered with an ice sheet at the last glacial maximum? and what was the natural refrigerator impact on regional climate and paleo-oceanography of the Northern Pacific? Based on studies of diatoms and pollen spectra recovered from deposits dated to the last glacial time, Western Beringia was essentially ice-free at that time. This may be attributed to a deficiency of moisture supply from the Pacific due to changes in vectors and intensity of the North Pacific currents. The thick snow cover needed for glacier formation could not accumulate. Western Beringia was dominated by a unique landscape of cold and dry tundra-steppe, its topography being complicated with arcuate ridges – end moraines of alpine and cirque glaciers. The glaciation of the region developed according to the North Yakutia scenario.