Plan A: the Diomede Dam
Fully closing off the Bering Strait by placing a dam at its narrowest point, connecting the Diomede islands to the mainland of Alaska and Siberia.
Effects
1. Temperature
Plan A will lead to a decrease of temperatures in the Chuckchi Sea:
Halting all movement of water, be it northward or southward, can only improve temperature isolation of the Arctic, leading to colder waters. Presently a dominant water current carries Pacific waters through the Bering Strait, deep¹ into the Arctic Ocean, bringing relatively high temperatures and probably being the most important factor in the pattern of early spring melt in the Chuckchi.
2. Dynamics
Plan A will lead to a decrease in water and ice dynamics, locally as well as, perhaps, on a larger scale; thereby favouring stability and permanence of the Arctic ice sheet, that will be less likely to disintegrate by forces such as the Beaufort Gyre.
A dam will not only stop water currents, it will also decrease storm fetch, locally. This favours a stable ice sheet in the Chuckchi.
Moreover, as the inflow of water from the Pacific is stopped, a decrease of the outflow of sea ice to the Atlantic, typically and annually occurring along Greenland’s east coast, can, theoretically, be expected.
3. Salinity
A decrease in salinity favours sea ice formation and slows down ice melting.
Quite contrary to what one would expect, the inflow of Pacific waters is, according to NOAA, a major source of freshwater in the Arctic. This is because the northward current along Alaska’s coast picks up the water of the Yukon, that mouths just 100 km south of the Bering Strait, and then carries it through the strait into the Arctic Ocean.
Plan A will stop this inflow, thereby possibly leading to an undesired increase of salinity in the Chuckchi, promoting ice melt.
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