Recovery of Athos and Mykonos stations

The POSEIDON system deals with serious financial problems that put in danger the systematic and efficient operation of its recording network. While the financing of the national research infrastructures is being suspended since 2021 and the HCMR’s Institute of Oceanography is unable to support the infrastructure, the shrinking of the system’s recording network was inevitable.

In this context, during the last maintenance cruise of the POSEIDON mooring network, the stations deployed south of the Mount Athos peninsula and north of Mykonos island were recovered. The Athos station has been in the area since May 2000 and its 22 years of operation created one of the longest oceanographic time series data in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A permanent monitoring network is essential to understand the effects imposed on the marine environment due to climate change since long time series should be analyzed to be revealed. In addition, actions related to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive implementation, are expected to be affected by the absence of data provided on a systematic basis.