Can listoffigures use the long caption instead?

Question

Throughout my document I have figures with captions set like this example:

\caption[Surface elevation change for Antarctica and Greenland]{Rate of change of surface elevation for Antarctica and Greenland over the period 2003-2007. Source: \citet{pritchard:09}.}

My problem is that I would like to change my List of Figures from using the short captions to using the long captions instead. Is there any way to do this with \listoffigures without having to change every figure \caption?

My shortened working document:

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{report} 
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\pagestyle{headings} 
\usepackage[top=3.4cm,left=2.2cm,right=3.5cm,bottom=3.0cm]{geometry}     
\geometry{a4paper} 

\usepackage[parfill]{parskip} 
\usepackage{natbib} 
\renewcommand\bibname{Reference List}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{rotating} 
\usepackage[section]{placeins}
\usepackage[compact]{titlesec}


\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
{\normalfont\huge\bfseries}{\chaptertitlename\ \thechapter}{20pt}{\Huge}


\renewcommand{\topfraction}{.85}
\renewcommand{\bottomfraction}{.7}
\renewcommand{\textfraction}{.15}
\renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{.66}
\renewcommand{\dbltopfraction}{.66}
\renewcommand{\dblfloatpagefraction}{.66}

\usepackage{amssymb} 
\usepackage{epstopdf} 
\usepackage{rotating}


\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{fixltx2e}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{tocloft}
\usepackage{longtable}

\renewcommand\contentsname{Contents}
\renewcommand\cftpartpresnum{PART }

\usepackage[pdftex,bookmarks=true,hidelinks,bookmarksopen=true]{hyperref}

\usepackage{lscape} \linespread{1.6} \DeclareGraphicsRule{.tif}{png}{.png}{`convert #1 `dirname #1`/`basename #1 .tif`.png}


\setlength{\belowcaptionskip}{18pt} % space below table caption

\begin{document}
\newgeometry{top=3.4cm,left=3.5cm,right=2cm,bottom=3.0cm}
\include{./title/1_tex/title}
\restoregeometry
\newpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
\mbox{}
\pagenumbering{roman} \setcounter{page}{1}
\include{./declaration/1_tex/declarations}

\begin{spacing}{1.1}

\tableofcontents
\newpage
\phantomsection \label{listoffig}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{List of Figures}
\listoffigures

\newpage
\phantomsection \label{listoftab}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{List of Tables}
\listoftables
\end{spacing} 

\bibliographystyle{copernicus}
\newpage
\newgeometry{top=3.4cm,left=3.5cm,right=2cm,bottom=3.0cm}
\titlespacing{\chapter}{0pt}{-10mm}{40pt}   
\setlength{\parindent}{25pt}
\begin{spacing}{1.5}
\pagenumbering{arabic} \setcounter{page}{1}
\include{./chapter1/1_tex/chapter1}
...

\end{document}

Answer 1

You can "revert" the existence of the optional argument by adding this at the end of your preamble:

\let\origcaption\caption
\renewcommand\caption[2][]{\origcaption{#2}}

Answer 2

The caption package does offer the option list-entry=headingfor that purpose, at least since v3.3:

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{report}
\usepackage[list-entry=heading]{caption}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\listoffigures
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{test}
\caption[Short caption text]{Full caption text}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

See endfloat package documentation for details, section "8.4.1 Removing captions".

Answer 3

This is highly dependent on what class you are using and whether you are using any caption formatting packages, which you have not shown. Please always post a complete small document that shows the problem that shows the relevant packages used.

If you are using the standard classes then this changes the toc to use #3 (the main argument) instead of #2 (the optional one).

\makeatletter
\long\def\@caption#1[#2]#3{%
  \par
  \addcontentsline{\csname ext@#1\endcsname}{#1}%
    %%%%%%{\protect\numberline{\csname the#1\endcsname}{\ignorespaces #2}}%
    {\protect\numberline{\csname the#1\endcsname}{\ignorespaces #3}}%
  \begingroup
    \@parboxrestore
    \if@minipage
      \@setminipage
    \fi
    \normalsize
    \@makecaption{\csname fnum@#1\endcsname}{\ignorespaces #3}\par
  \endgroup}
\makeatother