The results of the Quelccaya ice core are widely used to reconstruct past climate states. Quelccaya is the first ice cap from which old ice cores have been obtained that lies outside of the polar regions, and the first annually resolved such record from the tropical Andes; it demonstrated the usefulness of tropical ice for ice core studies and has been called a major step in the sampling of high elevation ice in the world. It was selected as a site for extra-polar ice core research as it is located in the sparsely investigated tropics and Quelccaya lies at higher elevation than Puncak Jaya in Indonesia or the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa; thus the ice is less disturbed by percolating meltwater. Because of the lack of seasonal temperature variations and of synoptic weather patterns, tropical glaciers may primarily record secular climate change.