The Ionian-Puglia Network of Meteorological - Environmental Stations. Ι. Geophysical Environment and Technical Description.

During the period of 2012 – 2015, a network of 15 permanent scientific Meteorological – Environmental stations established along the Ionian Islands (Greece) and the Salento peninsula (Puglia or Apulia, Italy). The network extends from the Adriatic-Ionian borders (Otranto station) to the southern tip of the Ionian Islands complex (Zakynthos), almost in parallel to the main orography of the Greek peninsula, within the southern extension of the Western Balkans wind convergence zone. Twelve of the stations have a 10 m height Meteorological mast architecture, while the rest three of them monitor the air suspended particulate matter mass concentration. The installlation locations were carefully selected (in remote areas in most of the cases) in order to ensure best exposure to the prevailing weather conditions at pre-specified wind sectors. The network construction was realized in the framework of the Interreg IV European Territorial Cooperation Programs “Greece-Italy 2007-2013”, under the acronym “the DEMSNIISI” Project. All stations are equipped with high quality scientific sensors, that measure ten, basic Meteorological parameters (namely, the wind vector at 10 m height from earth surface, the wind gust, the rain rate, the air temperature, the relative humidity, the barometric pressure, the Solar irradiance in the visible, and the UV-A -B bands, and the aerosols mass concentration) at one minute logging interval; 14 more parameters (Aeolic and Solar energy flow, among them) are computed per station and per minute. The measurements are real time published in graphical form through the web page http://ionianweather.gr, while the measurements numerical values are also accessible through the climatic database. Under the DEMSNIISI Project the number of ground based Meteorological stations in the Ionian Islands were over-doubled and a high quality Meteorological - Environmental network was added in the sensitive area of the Central Mediterranean. In this article, the main atmospheric processes and the climatic variability of the network physical environment (Ionian Sea) is reviewed, taking also into account the results of a number of studies performed in the Project’s framework. Furthermore, the technical specifications of the network stations is given along with a description of the communication methods, the data flow, the pre- and post-processing, and the web platform products.