atmospheric circulation

• Main Authors: S. Zhang, S. Hou, X. Ma, D. Qin, T. Chen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: ice core
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.391.1130; http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/29/75/91/PDF/bg-4-1-2007.pdf

Abstract. Only recently has specific attention been given to culturable bacteria in Tibetan glaciers, but their relation to atmospheric circulation is less understood yet. Here we present the results of culturable bacteria preserved in an ice core drilled from the East Rongbuk (ER) glacier, Himalayas. The average concentrations of culturable bacteria are 5.0, 0.8, 0.1 and 0.7 CFU mL −1 for the glacier ice deposited during the premonsoon, monsoon, postmonsoon and winter seasons, respectively. The high concentration of culturable bacteria in ER glacier deposited during the premonsoon season is attributed to the transportation of continental dust stirred up by the frequent dust storms during spring. This is also confirmed by the spatial distribution of culturable bacteria in Tibetan glaciers. Continental dust originated from the Northwest China accounts for the high abundance of culturable