Combining thin‐plate spline interpolation with a lapse rate model to produce daily air temperature estimates in a data‐sparse alpine catchment

Insufficient availability of weather stations recording air temperature is a common problem in many alpine regions. The low station density combined with the high variability of air temperature means that interpolated fields based on simple or more complex interpolation techniques are unlikely to be representative of the real patterns of air temperature. In this study, a novel method was developed to tackle this problem, following initial investigation of lapse rate variability in the study domain: the alpine Clutha catchment, New Zealand. Owing to a series of complexities in lapse rate variability, a multi-layer approach was adopted to produce 1 km2 daily fields of maximum (Tmax) and minimum air temperature (Tmin). The first layer of the Tmax and Tmin models was calculated using a trivariate thin-plate spline, which was constrained to the elevations of the continuous network to avoid unrealistic extrapolation. To compensate for missing continuous high elevation records, two lapse rate models were implemented to scale air temperature above the first layer. The two lapse rate models were based on the dominant processes driving lapse rate variation, which were found to be cold air ponding (Tmin) and spatial differences in relative humidity (Tmax). Independent station records were used to assess accuracy and compare the resultant fields to an existing product (the Virtual Climate Station Network) and a more conventional method based on a bivariate spline and a constant lapse rate. The validation revealed that the new methods developed here have led to a substantial improvement in producing spatial estimates of Tmax, with a mean root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.38 °C, while progress in regard to Tmin was more limited (mean RMSE of 2.93 °C). As such, this work demonstrates that inclusion of the driving processes controlling lapse rates in interpolation routines can lead to improvements in accuracy.