Assessment of interpolated ERA-40 reanalysis temperature and precipitation against observations of the Balkan Peninsula

Due to their ready availability and temporal and spatial consistency, reanalysis data are widely used within the climate community. Nevertheless, higher spatial resolutions are often required and statistical interpolation techniques are applied to increase the data resolution. This work aims to derive a set of high spatial resolution data through three-dimensional interpolation of daily temperature and precipitation. Thin plate spline interpolation has been chosen and used to interpolate ERA-40 temperature and precipitation from a coarse grid (110 km) into a finer one of 1-km spatial resolution. The study evaluates the method by comparing the simulated variables with available in situ meteorological measurements. The chosen stations are distributed over the study region and, most importantly, contain information from a range of altitudes. The results indicate that accounting for the topography in the interpolation process improves the comparisons, with the biggest improvements being evident in the most mountainous areas. The method is found to be better in estimating temperature than precipitation fields. Moreover, the method performs better for maximum temperature in high altitudes and for minimum temperature in low altitudes.