REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF MONSOON AND DESERT DUST SIGNALS RECORDED IN ASIAN GLACIERS

Short-term (6 months to 17 years) glaciochemical records have been col lected from glacier basins throughout the mountains of central Asia. T he spatial distribution of snow chemistry in central Asia is controlle d predominantly by the influx of dust from the arid and semi-arid regi ons in central Asia. The glaciochemical data suggests that glaciers wh ich are removed from large source areas of mineral aerosol, such as th ose in the Himalaya, the Karakoram, and the southeastern Tibetan Plate au, are the ones most likely to contain longer-term glaciochemical rec ords which detail annual to decadal variation in the strength of the A sian monsoon and long-range transport of Asian dust.