Case Studies from the Dinaric Karst of Slovenia

Fig. 15: Temperature and vegetational inversion in the Smrekova draga closed depression (Trnovski gozd, Slovenia;photo: A. Mihevc).precipitation. The lowest amount of precipitationtypically occurs in the winter months.Precipitation amounts peak in the autumnmonths (only close to Panonian basin, e.g. inNovo mesto, in the summer months) and isabove 800 mm/a, which differ slightly for theTransitional Continental climate in comparisonwith the Continental climate. Amounts of precipitationdecrease toward the northeast asdistance from the orographic barrier (Dinarskogorovje) increases.Although these three climates can be easilyobserved, less obvious microlocal changesof climate can be important in several cases,especially in karst areas where the strongestinfluence comes from topography. As a rule,the interiors of karst depressions are colderthan the higher ground surrounding them.This is especially true for karst poljes, whereabsolute minimum temperatures can be aslow as -34.5 °C (Babno polje at Notranjskopodolje (Notranjska lowland) at 756 m a.s.l.)and -41.8 °C (Veliko polje below mountainBjelašnica (Rodič 1987) due to temperatureinversions. Besides lower absolute minimumtemperatures, greater numbers of cold days,and greater amounts of snow cover, fog andfrost are also characteristic for enclosed karstdepressions (Fig. 15).23