High-altitude karst environments often host permanent ice deposits within caves, representing a lesser-known component of the cryosphere. Although not as widespread or accessible as mountain glaciers and ice caps, ice caves preserve valuable information about past environmental changes and climatic evolution.

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They are predominantly, though not exclusively, located in the periglacial domain where permafrost is not dominant, but they can also be found in much warmer climates.

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The natural response of ice caves to a warming climate may result in the rapid loss of these ice bodies, which hold critical paleoclimate information. For this reason, it is extremely urgent to carry out comprehensive research on this topic in order to preserve such valuable data before it is irretrievably lost.