Highlights
- Cave ice temperature measurements
- Rapid response of cave ice temperature to negative air temperature excursions
- Muted heat transfer inside ice with increasing depth
Abstract
Cave glaciers (i.e., perennial ice accumulations in caves), found throughout mountainous regions in Europe and North America are at risk of extinction due to rising air temperature and altered rainfall patterns. Their formation and subsequent preservation is the result of accumulation of ice during winter months and limited ablation in summer. These processes, in turn, are controlled by air temperature, which determines the overall mass balance of ice. One important aspect is the heat the ice mass loses in winter, which increases its resilience during summer. While ice caves’ climate has been intensively studied in the past, investigations of ice temperature dynamics have been extremely limited, due to the lack of dedicated monitoring. In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of ice temperature in Scărișoara Ice Cave (Romania), in relation to air temperature variability. Our data shows that heat loss from the ice is governed by the strength and duration of cold air intrusions in the cave during winter. The variability in air temperature is being transmitted inside the ice, but with increasing delayed and decreasing amplitude. Ice is warming at depths exceeding 10 m, thus raising the possibility of catastrophic ice melt if temperatures rise above the 0°C isotherm.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/1827-806X.ijs2596
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Perşoiu, A., 2026. Ice temperature and heat transfer processes in cave glaciers. International Journal of Speleology, 54(3), ijs2596. https://doi.org/10.5038/1827-806X.ijs2596
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