Cave ice – the imminent loss of untapped mid-latitude cryospheric palaeoenvironmental archives

Cave hosted ice bodies have been reported to suffer significant mass loss worldwide. Although some successful achievements were reported recently to confirm the potential of stable isotope, pollen or trace element records in cave glaciers for climate and environmental reconstructions, these archives are still weakly studied. This brief paper is to be an invitation to the geoscience community to face this research need and devote more scientific attention to the complex research of cave ice deposits before accelerated melt will determine the complete loss of the unique palaeoenvironmental information stored in these deposits.

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