A Comparison among Strategies for Interpolating Maximum and Minimum Daily Air Temperatures. Part II: The Interaction between Number of Guiding Variables and the Type of Interpolation Method

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Abstract
In a comparative experiment, the sequence of daily maximum and minimum temperatures for 1976 was interpolated over England and Wales to a resolution of 1 km using partial thin plate splines, ordinary kriging, trend surface, and an automatic inverse-distance-weighted method of interpolation. A “level playing field” for comparing the estimation accuracies was established through the incorporation of a consistent set of guiding variables in all interpolators. Once variables were included to guide the interpolators, differences in estimation accuracy among partial thin plate splines, ordinary kriging, and inverse distance weighting results were not significant although the performance of trend surface analysis was poorer. Best accuracies were achieved using partial thin plate splines, with jackknife cross-validation root-mean-square errors of 0.8°C for an annual series of daily maximum temperatures and 1.14°C for daily minimum temperatures. The results from this study suggest that sole reliance on th... Abstract In a comparative experiment, the sequence of daily maximum and minimum temperatures for 1976 was interpolated over England and Wales to a resolution of 1 km using partial thin plate splines, ordinary kriging, trend surface, and an automatic inverse-distance-weighted method of interpolation. A “level playing field” for comparing the estimation accuracies was established through the incorporation of a consistent set of guiding variables in all interpolators. Once variables were included to guide the interpolators, differences in estimation accuracy among partial thin plate splines, ordinary kriging, and inverse distance weighting results were not significant although the performance of trend surface analysis was poorer. Best accuracies were achieved using partial thin plate splines, with jackknife cross-validation root-mean-square errors of 0.8°C for an annual series of daily maximum temperatures and 1.14°C for daily minimum temperatures. The results from this study suggest that sole reliance on th...