Previous investigations of climatic conditions of glaciers primarily focused on the glacier's surface or on the moulin as the entrance to the glacier's interior. Many glaciers, however, contain far-reaching cave systems inside the ice that have been understood and investigated as drainage systems for meltwater. Until now, there have been no comprehensive climate studies inside a glacier cave. Thus, the climatic conditions, as well as their effects on the glacier, are unknown. The first climatologic investigations inside the cave system of Sandy Glacier on Mt. Hood in Oregon (USA) in June 2015 have shown that both thermic activity of the volcanic subsurface and chimney effects between the glacier snout at the base of the glacier and higher opening of the moulin can cause drastic melting inside the glacier. Those processes lead to considerably stronger melting from the inside than observations at the surface suggest and can cause an unexpected collapse over a distance of several hundred meters. We will present and assess the first measuring results of both the thermic and flow conditions inside Sandy Glacier.

The focus of this article is both a region and a type of cave not typically associated with ice caves. Nevertheless, both the region and the type play an important role in American ice-cave research. Talus-and-gorge ice caves in the northeastern United States can be used as climate indicators for a whole region; and therefore, they are the target of this young field of research. Ice caves, in general, are sensitive climatopes that can serve as excellent indicators for short and long term changes in the climate of a region, principally because of shifts between phases of increasing ice growth and melting during a year and over time. This research started with an investigation of known talus-and-gorge ice caves, followed by environmental monitoring of selected caves with perennial ice that were equipped with temperature sensors recorded over four years. This is one of the world's longest high-resolution climatologic monitoring record of such caves. In addition, the height of the ice was surveyed annually at a time when ice would most likely be at its minimum, the start of November. This allowed for investigation of the annual changes and the influence of the temperature over the previous year. Some predictions for the future of the ice caves and the whole region could be deduced from the data. At the moment, there is no sign of either a renewed increase in the number of talus-and-gorge ice caves or an increase in ice accumulation within the existing ones.D. Holmgren, A. Pflitsch, K. Rancourt, and J. Ringeis. Talus-and-gorge ice caves in the northeastern United States past to present-A microclimatological study.

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Natural and anthropogenic ice caves are spread out on the North American continent, especially in the United States. Many of these climate archives are already forgotten, no longer contain ice due to climatic changes, or are expected to lose their ice soon. However, sources from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggest the former density of ice caves in this nation. A synopsis of the American ice cave research from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the present is the focus of this article. A priori, basic terms and problems of ice cave research are addressed and elucidated. Subsequently, climatic conditions that facilitate or counteract the buildup of cave ice over the course of a year are presented. On the basis of an ice cave classification, different ice cave types are outlined and analyzed in their distribution in the United States. The accompanying map illustrating the geographic locations of caves in the mainland United States represents the first version of an American ice cave distribution.