This paper deals with the climatic and bioclimatic conditions, trends and variability in the mountainous areas of Croatia and Slovenia. Two mountain meteorological observatories were chosen: Zavizan in the Croatian Dinaric Alps and Kredarica in the Slovenian Julian Alps. Both have the same monitoring protocol and similar instruments. The station's natural environment remained unchanged since 1955. Therefore, the data of both observatories are extremely valuable for studying changes in sensitive mountain ecosystems in Croatia and Slovenia. Data from the period 1955-2004 were used to assess mountain climatic and bioclimatic variability and trends in both countries. The analysis of the bioclimatic conditions has been carried out using the physiologically equivalent temperature (PET), which is based on the human energy balance models. The prevailing thermal sensation at both stations is very cold, varying from very cold winters to cold and cool summers. Results of the trend analysis indicate a significant increase in the thermal bioclimate index PET in both regions, mainly caused by rising air temperature, especially in spring and summer. The progressive trend test analysis indicated the beginning of positive PET trend in the 1980s - in 1981 on Zavizan and in 1988 on Kredarica. In spite of the considerable increase in thermal comfort in the last 50 years, the bioclimate conditions stayed within the range of the same class of thermal perception.

The paper describes the development of a dataset of 192 monthly precipitation series covering the greater alpine region (GAR, 4- 18degreesE by 43-49degreesN). A few of the time series extend back to 1800. A description is provided of the sometimes laborious processes that were involved in this work: from locating the original sources of the data to homogenizing the records and eliminating as many of the outliers as possible. Locating the records required exhaustive searches of archives currently held in yearbooks and other sources of the states, countries and smaller regional authorities that existed at various times during the last 200 years. Homogeneity of each record was assessed by comparison with neighbouring series, although this becomes difficult when the density of stations reduces in the earliest years. An additional 47 series were used, but the density of the sites in Austria and Switzerland was reduced to maintain an even coverage in space across the whole of the GAR. We are confident of the series back to 1840, but the quality of data before this date must be considered poorer. Of all of the issues involved ill homogenizing these data, perhaps the most serious problem is associated with the differences in the height above ground of the precipitation gauges, in particular the general lowering of gauge heights in the late 19th century for all countries, with the exception of Italy. The standard gauge height in the early-to-mid 19th century was 15-30 in above the ground, with gauges being generally sited on rooftops. Adjustments to some series of the order of 30-50% are necessary for compatibility with the near-ground location of gauges during much of the 20th century. Adjustments are sometimes targer in the winter, when catching snowfall presents serious problems. Data from mountain-top observatories have not been included in this compilation (because of the problem of measuring snowfall), so the highest gauge sites are at elevations of 1600-1900 in in high alpine valley locations. Two subsequent papers will analyse the dataset. The first will compare the series with other large-scale precipitation datasets for this region, and the second will describe the major modes of temporal variability of precipitation totals in different seasons and determine coherent regions of spatial variability. Copyright (C) 2005 Royal Meteorological Society.

We present a dataset of daily resolution climatic time series that has been compiled for the European Climate Assessment (ECA). As of December 2001, this ECA dataset comprises 199 series of minimum, maximum and/or daily mean temperature and 195 series of daily precipitation amount observed at meteorological stations in Europe and the Middle East. Almost all series cover the standard normal period 1961-90, and about 50% extends back to at least 1925. Part of the dataset (90%) is made available for climate research on CDROM and through the Internet (at http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/eca).A comparison of the ECA dataset with existing gridded datasets, having monthly resolution, shows that correlation coefficients between ECA stations and nearest land grid boxes between 1946 and 1999 are higher than 0.8 for 93% of the temperature series and for 51% of the precipitation series. The overall trends in the ECA dataset are of comparable magnitude to those in the gridded datasets.The potential of the ECA dataset for climate studies is demonstrated in two examples. In the first example, it is shown that the winter (October-March) warming in Europe in the 1976-99 period is accompanied by a positive trend in the number of warm-spell days at most stations, but not by a negative trend in the number of cold-spell days. Instead, the number of cold-spell days increases over Europe. In the second example, it is shown for winter precipitation between 1946 and 1999 that positive trends in the mean amount per wet day prevail in areas that are getting drier and wetter.Because of its daily resolution, the ECA dataset enables a variety of empirical climate studies, including detailed analyses of changes in the occurrence of extremes in relation to changes in mean temperature and total precipitation. Copyright (C) 2002 Royal Meteorological Society.

Changes in maximum and minimum daily temperatures (TMAX and TMIN, respectively) in nine selected regions of central Europe and in Bulgaria during 1951-1990 are investigated. Average series for central Europe are compiled and analyzed by linear trend analysis and the kernel smoothing. The increase in the annual TMAX in central Europe was, during 1951-1990, slightly lower than that of TMIN (0.52 degrees C and 0.60 degrees C, respectively). This results in a small decrease in the daily temperature range (DTR) by -0.08 degrees C. With the exception of the spring TMIN other linear trends are insignificant. The observed insignificant trends in DTR in the central European region are related to small cloudiness changes, Long-term fluctuations of annual TMAX, TMIN, and DTR for eight selected series during the twentieth century are also investigated.

The Greater Alpine Region (the GAR) covering the area between 4-19°E and 43-50°N and an altitude range between 0 and more than 4000 m asl. offers a challenging climate worth to be studied in any detail. However, it is surprising that up to now no comprehensive Alpine Temperature Climatology covering the whole region is exist- ing. To overcome this deficiency as a first step we want to produce monthly temperature maps for this region in spatial resolution as high as possible. The period under investigation will be 1961-1990. In this paper we will de- scribe the first steps of our initiative as well as the further plans. Keywords - Greater Alpine Region (GAR), monthly Temperature Climatology ,high spatial resolution, 1961-1990