2600-year record of atmospheric circulation and climate from the Dobsinska Ice Cave

The ice monolith in the Dobsinska Ice Cave is, in addition to a tourist attraction, also a very valuable paleoclimatic archive. For centuries, penetrating water stores information in the ice about the amount of precipitation, their isotope and chemical composition, melting and sublimation events, volcanic eruptions. There are very few similar temperate ice records in the world - although ice caves are not uncommon, the presence of long-lasting layered ice is exceptional. Unlike sediments or stalagmites, ice archives are threatened by climate warming and basal melting, so it is urgent to examine them until it is too late. The very good time resolution of the Dobsinska ice predestines it for correlations with other types of climate archives - stalagmites, tree rings and instrumental records. The first step in this research is to obtain an accurately dated isotope profile. The ice monolith in the Dobsinska Ice Cave is a continuous record of precipitation from the end of the Hallstatt period to the present and demonstrably contains a climatic signal. (authors)