Assessment of High Resolution Air Temperature Fields at Rocky Mountain National Park by Combining Scarce Point Measurements with Elevation and Remote Sensing Data

There is necessity of considering air temperature to simulate the hydrology and management within water resources systems. In many cases, a big issue is considering the scarcity of data due to poor accessibility and limited funds. This paper proposes a methodology to obtain high resolution air temperature fields by combining scarce point measurements with elevation data and land surface temperature (LST) data from remote sensing. The available station data (SNOTEL stations) are sparse at Rocky Mountain National Park, necessitating the inclusion of correlated and well-sampled variables to assess the spatial variability of air temperature. Different geostatistical approaches and weighted solutions thereof were employed to obtain air temperature fields. These estimates were compared with two relatively direct solutions, the LST (MODIS) and a lapse rate-based interpolation technique. The methodology was evaluated using data from different seasons. The performance of the techniques was assessed through a cross validation experiment. In both cases, the weighted kriging with external drift solution (considering LST and elevation) showed the best results, with a mean squared error of 3.7 and 3.6 degrees C-2 for the application and validation, respectively.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a methodology to obtain high resolution air temperature fields by combining scarce point measurements with elevation data and land surface temperature (LST) data from remote sensing. Different geostatistical approaches were employed to assess the spatial variability of air temperature, with weighted kriging showing the best results. The methodology was evaluated using data from different seasons, with a mean squared error of 3.7 and 3.6 degrees C-2 for the application and validation, respectively.