Could Building a Dam Across the Bering Strait Save the Planet From Some Effects of Climate Change?

A preliminary study suggests that blocking off the waterway between Russia and Alaska could help the survival of a key system of ocean currents. But there could be potential unseen consequences, particularly to marine ecosystems

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

May 14, 2026 12:05 p.m.

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Damming the Bering Strait, a narrow waterway between Russia and Alaska, could prevent the collapse of a crucial network of ocean currents, according to a bold geoengineering proposal from two Dutch scientists.

The work, published in the journal Science Advances on April 24, suggests that closing a roughly 50-mile-wide passageway between the Pacific and Arctic oceans could extend the lifespan of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. The current system plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s climate, but it’s under threat due to the world’s warming.

The AMOC acts like a water conveyor belt. It transports warm, salty surface water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, where the water then cools, becomes denser and sinks. It’s a major reason why Europe has a relatively mild climate, despite its high latitude. That cold water then moves back south, carrying along nutrients essential for marine life.

Recent studies, however, have shown that the AMOC is weakening. As temperatures rise, Greenland’s ice is melting, dumping fresh water into the North Atlantic. That means the surface water is less salty, which disrupts the sinking of cold water and subsequently reduces the amount of incoming warm water from the tropics.

Research suggests that the impacts of AMOC’s collapse could be devastating. Sea levels would rise along the U.S. East Coast. Temperatures would drop in Europe. Rain patterns would shift, bringing drought to Europe and Africa.

The new study posits that a giant dam could buy the Earth more time. The Bering Strait allows fresh water to travel from the Pacific Ocean into the Arctic Ocean, and then into the Atlantic. Damming it would block that flow and change the amount of fresh water and salty water in each ocean.

Study co-author Jelle Soons, a physical oceanographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, tells New Scientist’s Joshua Howgego that he thought a dam could be a possible intervention after learning that sea levels were lower during the Pliocene epoch, around 2.6 million to 5.3 million years ago, when a land bridge disrupted the Bering Strait. Previous research had shown that the AMOC was stronger during this period, largely thanks to the barrier.

“So, I wondered what would happen if we closed off the Bering Strait again,” Soons tells Chris Simms at Live Science.

Soons and Henk Dijkstra, also a physical oceanographer at Utrecht University, ran computer simulations to test the idea. Building a dam with a slightly weakened AMOC could strengthen the current system and allow it to function, even with rising emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, the team found. If the AMOC is already near collapse, however, closing the strait would speed up its destabilization.

These findings are based on a relatively simple model of the climate, reports New Scientist. Repeating the simulations with a more advanced climate model hinted that a closure of the Bering Strait would prevent AMOC collapse in both scenarios if the dam is built by at least 2050.

“I was surprised at how strong the recovery was,” Soons tells the outlet. He presented the updated findings on May 5 at the European Geosciences Union general assembly.

Still, scientists don’t know how close we are to an AMOC collapse, says Aixue Hu, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado who wasn’t involved in the study, to Raymond Zhong at the New York Times. Some computer simulations suggest it could happen by the end of this century, while others say that is unlikely.

“The uncertainty is very, very large,” Hu says, so it’s not clear if damming the strait would hurt or help the current network in the long run. Still, Hu adds that given the harm a collapse would cause, the proposal is worth exploring.

However, “blocking the strait would alter the exchange of water, heat, nutrients and marine life between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, with potential impacts on marine ecosystems and regional ocean circulation,” Jonathan Baker, an ocean scientist at the U.K. Met Office, the national meteorological service, who wasn’t involved in the research, tells Live Science. “It could also lead to changes in climate that are not yet fully understood.”

“Any intervention of this scale would need to carefully consider potential unintended consequences alongside any intended benefits,” he says.

Sara Hashemi | Read More

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.