Increasing temperatures worldwide lead to more melting of glaciers and ice caps, even in the polar regions. This is why ice-core scientists need to prepare to analyse records affected by melting and refreezing. In this paper, we present a summary of how near-surface melt forms, what structural imprints it leaves in snow, how various signatures used for ice-core climate reconstruction are altered, and how we can still extract valuable insights from melt-affected ice cores.

The northern permafrost region stores half the world's soil carbon. As the region warms, permafrost thaws and releases dissolved organic carbon, which leads to decomposition of this carbon pool or export into aquatic ecosystems. In this study we developed a new database of 2276 dissolved organic carbon concentrations in eight different ecosystems from 111 studies published over 22 years. This study highlights that coastal areas may play an important role in future high-latitude carbon cycling.