How exactly did animals from places like Africa, the Middle East, etc. survive crossing the Bering land bridge during the Ice Age as wouldn’t a good amount of these animals come from much warmer climates?

Question

How exactly did animals from places like Africa, the Middle East, etc. survive crossing the Bering land bridge during the Ice Age as wouldn’t a good amount of these animals come from much warmer climates?

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

The Ice Age wasn’t *that* much colder. The scary thing is how little the temperature has to change for everything to get wonky. [This article](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/last-ice-age-global-temperature-scientist-predict/) argues the global average temperature during this period was about 7.8C (46F). For comparison, the current global average seems to be 12.7C (54F). So the window hasn’t changed a lot.

The article seems to suggest an explanation, too:

> “What is interesting is that Alaska was not entirely covered with ice,” Tierney said. “There was an ice-free corridor that allowed humans to travel across the Bering Strait, into Alaska. Central Alaska was actually not that much colder than today, so for Ice Age humans it might have been a relatively nice place to settle.

I’m sure there’s a more technical explanation, but it seems like we believe for whatever reason that area was relatively warm in that time period.