“Bacteria species found in glacial ice could pose disease risk as glaciers melt from global warming.”

Such was the headline at Phys.org for an article announcing that Chinese researchers obtained snow, ice and cryoconite from several glaciers; attempted to grow the bacteria they scraped up; and sequenced all the DNA they found. The article went on to identify four potential threats that could lead to a new pandemic:

1. The bacteria that grew from their samples could directly infect people and cause disease. However, these are psychrophiles that grow well at 4ºC but not at the temperature of human bodies.
   
2. Modern microbes among the bacteria—the kind that blow in from all over the world. However, we should already be immune to these precisely because they blow in from all over the world.
   
3. Ancient microbes which have survived in a cryopreserved state (up to 10,000 years, they claim). While it is true that lyophilized microbes can be preserved almost indefinitely, that requires a desiccated state. Yet while there may be some areas on a glacier that are moisture-free, there is lots of water in snow and ice. I suspect few such microbes could survive on a glacier.
   
4. Horizontal gene transfer from one of the groups above to modern bacteria. But in order for genes to transfer from one group to another, both groups have to be living and growing in the same environment, which psychrophiles and mesophiles do not do. Transferring genes from one modern bacteria to another already happens. Transferring virulence genes from ancient bacteria to modern bacteria is theoretically possible, but it is unlikely because their survival is so rare, as noted above.

I think the risk of glacier melt causing another pandemic is greatly exaggerated, probably to get funding from climate change fear-mongers.

Photo, the lichen Xanthoria elegans Th. Fr. Specimen photographed in Mount Stearn, Wellmore Wilderness, Alberta, Canada, by Jason Hollinger, edited by Papa Lima Whiskey, Creative Commons.