the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 29 May 2026
SISAL_monv1: a global database of cave monitoring observations
Abstract. Cave monitoring is the process of collecting observational data such as microclimate conditions, hydrogeochemistry and water movement in cave systems. The most common motivation is for speleothem science – the reconstruction of past climate and environmental variability from cave formations such as stalagmites. Applications also include the monitoring of potential recharge to aquifers, as well as cave conservation. PAGES-SISAL (Past Global Changes – Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and AnaLysis), an international working group focused on speleothem science, has created a new global database of cave monitoring data consisting of drip rates and drip water isotopes, and the modern carbonate precipitates that form from these drip waters (so called farmed carbonates, grown on artificial substrates). Moreover, we report meteoric precipitation amounts and water isotopes at or near to cave sites. The draft version of the database can be found at https://repo.researchdata.hu/privateurl.xhtml?token=43a43257-f06e-4dc5-9e96-6603eabe775f, which will be available under doi: 10.5158/ARP/29W5J3 upon publication. The database contains datasets from 75 caves, with summary information including meta-data on location, elevation, cave depth, lithology, measurement methods and citations for original publications. Speleothem records previously curated by SISAL in SISAL speleothem database versions and corresponding to monitored drip sites are also identified in the new SISAL monitoring database. To supplement observational data gaps and provide accessible and consistent climate data for users, surface climate (precipitation, evaporation, temperature) and meteoric water isotope data extracted from global climate model products are also included in the database.
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Status: open (until 06 Aug 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on essd-2026-31', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 Jun 2026 reply
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SISAL_monv1: a global database of cave monitoring observations Pauline C. Treble et al. https://repo.researchdata.hu/privateurl.xhtml?token=43a43257-f06e-4dc5-9e96-6603eabe775f
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This manuscript presents SISAL_monv1, a global cave-monitoring database. I find this to be a valuable and timely dataset paper. The database will be highly useful for speleothem science, palaeoclimate reconstruction, karst hydrology, groundwater-recharge studies, and data-model comparison. The manuscript is clearly written, the database structure is well documented, and the community effort behind the compilation is substantial. I strongly support publication of this manuscript, subject only to minor clarifications that would improve usability and prevent possible misinterpretation by future users.
1. The database includes site-specific precipitation amount and precipitation isotope sample data, but it also includes monthly precipitation and precipitation-isotope values extracted from gridded products such as MSWEP and IsoGSM. I suggest that the authors explain this relationship more explicitly. In particular, it would be helpful to clarify whether gridded values are extracted at the cave coordinates or precipitation-monitoring-site coordinates, how users should handle differences in temporal resolution between observed samples and monthly products, and whether monthly precipitation isotope values are precipitation-weighted means. This would help users avoid treating local observations and gridded estimates as interchangeable.
2. It would be very useful for users to quickly know the duration of the monitoring data available for each site and each data type. At present, users may need to inspect the sample tables directly to determine the start and end dates of precipitation isotope monitoring, drip-water isotope monitoring, drip-rate monitoring, or modern carbonate sampling. I'm not sure if it is easy to add summary fields, either in the metadata tables or as an additional summary table, giving the monitoring start date, end date, duration, and possibly number of samples for each site and data type. This would greatly improve the discoverability and usability of the dataset, especially for users interested in comparing records across sites or selecting datasets suitable for time-series analysis.
3. Missing parentheses around Lines 363-364.