India, April 29 -- A dam in the body of water that separates Eurasia from the Americas could potentially help stabilise

the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a large system of ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean, according to new research by a PhD student from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Using climate models, Jelle Soons investigated how closing the Bering Strait (named after explorer Vitus Bering) would affect the current. In some scenarios, the AMOC remains more stable, although uncertainties are large and it is unclear whether such an intervention would work in practice.

In the AMOC system, warm, salty water flows northward at the surface, cools, and sinks in the North Atlantic, before returning southwa...