A 182 m ice core was recovered from a borehole drilled into bedrock on the western plateau of Mt. Elbrus (43°20´53.9'' N, 42°25´36.0'' E; 5115 m a.s.l.) in the Caucasus, Russia, in 2009. This is the first ice core in the region that represents a paleoclimate record that is practically undisturbed by seasonal melting. Relatively high snow accumulation rates at the drilling site enabled the analysis of the intraseasonal variability in climate proxies. Borehole temperatures ranged from −17 °C at 10 m depth to −2.4 °C at 182 m. A detailed radio-echo sounding survey showed that the glacier thickness ranged from 45 m near the marginal zone of the plateau up to 255 m at the glacier center. The ice core has been analyzed for stable isotopes (δ18O and δD), major ions (K+, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, NH4+, SO42-, NO3-, Cl-, F-), succinic acid (HOOCCH2COOH), and tritium content. The mean annual net accumulation rate of 1455 mm w.e. for the last 140 years was estimated from distinct annual oscillations of δ18O, δD, succinic acid, and NH4+. Annual layer counting also helped date the ice core, agreeing with the absolute markers of the tritium 1963 bomb horizon located at the core depth of 50.7 m w.e. and the sulfate peak of the Katmai eruption (1912) at 87.7 m w.e. According to mathematical modeling results, the ice age at the maximum glacier depth is predicted to be ~ 660 years BP. The 2009 borehole is located downstream from this point, resulting in an estimated basal ice age of less than 350–400 years BP at the drilling site. The glaciological and initial chemical analyses from the Elbrus ice core help reconstruct the atmospheric history of the European region.

Over the past 30 years, there has been a catastrophic reduction of the glacierized area in the mountains of the Greater Caucasus, with the values reaching 0.69% per year. Physical mechanisms accountable for such intense melting are investigated in this study. The main trends in the temperature‐moisture regime of the Caucasus and adjacent areas for the period 1982–2015 were recovered based on instrumental data and the ERA‐Interim data reanalysis. It is demonstrated that there is statistically significant warming for the summer season in the region as a whole. No statistically significant changes were detected in the precipitation regime, despite the increase in the integral moisture content of the atmosphere and in the potential convective energy. The integral moisture content growth is compensated by the increase in the moisture divergence. This happens due to the intensification of large‐scale descending atmospheric motions. As a result, the seasonal and annual precipitation amounts do not change significantly. Such effects are possibly the consequence of the global process of “widening of the tropics.” This process is most clearly manifested in the expansion of the Hadley cell and the northward shift of its descending branch. This process can lead to an increased frequency of anticyclones over the southern regions of Europe during the warm part of the year. This, in turn, leads to a negative cloud cover trend as well as an increase in the closely related radiation balance. Apparently, this process is the cause of the intensive reduction of the glaciation area in the North Caucasus.

Ice cores are one of the most valuable paleo-archives. Records from ice cores provide information not only about the amount of dust in the atmosphere, but also about dust sources and their changes in the past. In 2009, a 182 m long ice core was recovered from the western plateau of Mt Elbrus (5115 m a.s.l.). This record was further extended after a shallow ice core was drilled in 2013. Here we analyse Ca²⁺ concentrations, a commonly used proxy of dust, recorded in these Elbrus ice records over the time period of 1774–2013 CE. The Ca²⁺ record reveals quasi-decadal variability with a generally increasing trend. Using multiple regression analysis, we found a statistically significant spatial correlation of the Elbrus Ca²⁺ summer concentrations with precipitation and soil moisture content in the Levant region (specifically Syria and Iraq). The Ca²⁺ record also correlates with drought indices in North Africa (r=0.67, p<0.001) and Middle East regions (r=0.71, p<0.001). Dust concentrations prominently increase in the ice core over the past 200 years, confirming that the recent droughts in the Fertile Crescent (1998–2012 CE) present the most severe aridity experienced in at least the past two centuries. For the most recent 33 years recorded (1979–2012 CE), significant correlations exist between Ca²⁺ and Pacific circulation indices (Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Southern Oscillation Index and Niño 4), which suggests that the increased frequency of extreme El Niño and La Niña events due to a warming climate has extended their influence to the Middle East. Evidence demonstrates that the increase in Ca²⁺ concentration in the ice core cannot be attributed to human activities, such as coal combustion and cement production.

This study presents a dataset on long-term multidisciplinary glaciological, hydrological, and meteorological observations and isotope sampling in a sparsely monitored alpine zone of the North Caucasus in the Djankuat research basin. The Djankuat glacier, which is the largest in the basin, was chosen as representative of the central North Caucasus during the International Hydrological Decade and is one of 30 “reference” glaciers in the world that have annual mass balance series longer than 50 years (Zemp et al., 2009). The dataset features a comprehensive set of observations from 2007 to 2017 and contains yearly measurements of snow depth and density; measurements of dynamics of snow and ice melting; measurements of water runoff, conductivity, turbidity, temperature, δ¹⁸O, δD at the main gauging station (844 samples in total) with an hourly or sub-daily time step depending on the parameter; data on δ¹⁸O and δ²H sampling of liquid precipitation, snow, ice, firn, and groundwater in different parts of the watershed taken regularly during melting season (485 samples in total); measurements of precipitation amount, air temperature, relative humidity, shortwave incoming and reflected radiation, longwave downward and upward radiation, atmospheric pressure, and wind speed and direction – measured at several automatic weather stations within the basin with 15 min to 1 h time steps; gradient meteorological measurements to estimate turbulent fluxes of heat and moisture, measuring three components of wind speed at a frequency of 10 Hz to estimate the impulse of turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat over the glacier surface by the eddy covariance method. Data were collected during the ablation period (June–September). The observations were halted in winter. The dataset is available from PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.894807, Rets et al., 2018a) and will be further updated. The dataset can be useful for developing and verifying hydrological, glaciological, and meteorological models for alpine areas, to study the impact of climate change on hydrology of mountain regions using isotopic and hydrochemical approaches in hydrology. As the dataset includes the measurements of hydrometeorological and glaciological variables during the catastrophic proglacial lake outburst in the neighboring Bashkara valley in September 2017, it is a valuable contribution to study lake outbursts.