Resumen de Melting moments
Thousands of years of frozen history will be gone in a matter of decades. The hole in the center of the ice-filled cave in central Austria is growing quickly, swollen by the warming climate. With the melting ice, unique climate records are trickling away. The ice in these deposits is special because it promises to unlock secrets about past climate other natural archives won't easily relinquish. Unlike ice cores--which offer incredibly detailed and ancient records of the climate--the cave ice could spill the beans on more recent atmospheric conditions in heavily inhabited areas, says Marc Luetscher from the University of Innsbruck, who is working on the ice. What's more, the ice would neatly complement tree-ring records. Trees grow faster during warm weather, so give good information about climatic conditions in summer. The ice in the caves forms during cold weather, which tells what winters were like.
