Starting in the pandemic and COVID lockdowns, the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association (ACKMA) established a cave climate monitoring program to find out the baseline climate of tourist caves across the region.
Four years on, and some of the participating of organizations are still collecting cave temperature and humidity data. Thanks to the amazing team at ACKMA, this is publicly available to explore at https://ackma.org/CaveClimate/index.asp
The latest big upload of data was posted over the weekend, with updated records for Yonderup Cave and Crystal Cave at Yanchep in Western Australia, Caldargup Cave in the Margaret River region on Western Australia, Te Anau in New Zealand, and Marakoopa and King Solomon Caves in northern Tasmania.
All these sites are approaching four years of cave climate data. Lockdowns are a thing of history, the caves have reopened and any impact of visitors on the cave climate has been quantified. It is a benchmark project for sustainable cave management.
Andy Baker 
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