Global warming and its impacts on climate have made climatologists study climate patterns of the past so that they can reasonably predict the weather of the future. Tree-ing analysis (dendrochronology), ice-core studies and historical records, lake sediments and speleothems (cave deposits) are used the world over to understand past climatic patterns. But, compared to other techniques, the information provided by the speleothems is proving to be more reliable and precise.

Let us first understand what speleothems are and how they are formed.