Abstract:

Data availability is severely limited in high-altitude regions (Shea et al., 2015) mainly due to the remoteness and difficulty in accessing the sites. However, high mountain ecosystems are among the most sensitive environments to changes in climatic conditions occurring on global, regional and local scales (Ruiz et al., 2008). Due to significant warming observed globally during the recent century, the international scientific community has focused more attention to understand the cause and effect interaction on the ecosystems and their individual components to climate changes (Borgaonkar et al., 2011). In many mountain regions of the world, high altitudes appear to experience a stronger warming than the surrounding lowlands (Vuille, 2011) and that the warming is more closely related to an increase in daily minimum temperature than a change in the daily maximum (Diaz and Bradley, 1997; Beniston, 2006; Giambelluca et al., 2008). The main objective of this study is to evaluate the variability of meteorological parameters measured by two high altitude meteorological stations (OITI and KALLIDROMO) that have never been analyzed before, located in two mountainous Natura 2000 sites of Central Greece, in the Region of Sterea Ellada (Figure 1). The stations were settled in the framework of the Project: Conservation of priority forests and forest openings in "Ethnikos Drymos Oitis" and "Oros Kallidromo" of Sterea Ellada. The data sets recorded in the meteorological stations cover the periods 2014-2018.

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