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Caves and canyons: ideal places for climate changes monitoring in Mediterranean areas.

Madonia, Paolo*,1, 2, 3, 1 Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Palermo, Italia2 Al Qantara, Palermo, Italia3 Associazione Italiana Canyoning, Ancona, Italia

ABSTRACT- Canyons and caves are morphological features replicated in very similar shapes along wide types of climatic and geologic contexts. Moreover, their internal atmosphere, due to the relative segregation respect the outer environment, show minor variations in terms of temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentrations. For these reasons, canyons and caves might represent a useful environment for the monitoring of climatic changes in different ecological contexts. The Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (I.N.G.V., www.ingv.it), the Italian Canyoning Association (A.I.C., www.canyoning.it) and the Italian no-profit organization Al Qantara (www.alqantara.it) since the year 1999 started a monitoring program of some selected caves and canyons, located in a transect extended from Jordan (near Asia) to the Appennine chains (Northern Italy). Both continuous and discontinuous monitoring of air temperature and relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentrations have been carried out during these years. As a preliminary result, these first data evidenced how the inner climate dynamic of each of these environments is much smoothed respect their corresponding external environments. In particular: 1) Conditions of high air relative humidity are maintained also in drastic arid conditions, like the Beidha Canyon in Southern Jordan; 2) The presence of flowing waters constitute a thermal tampon that stabilize very well the air temperature dynamic inside these environments; 3) The dynamic of carbon dioxide concentrations in underground atmospheres is well related to the ratio between underground and external air temperatures and to the rainfall dynamics. These preliminary results suggest that these particular environments might be successfully used in global climatic changes monitoring.

Key words: Canyon, Cave, Atmosphere, Climatic changes

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