Interpolation of climate variables and temperature modeling

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and modeling are becoming powerful tools in agricultural research and natural resource management. This study proposes an empirical methodology for modeling and mapping of the monthly and annual air temperature using remote sensing and GIS techniques. The study area is Gangetic West Bengal and its neighborhood in the eastern India, where a number of weather systems occur throughout the year. Gangetic West Bengal is a region of strong heterogeneous surface with several weather disturbances. This paper also examines statistical approaches for interpolating climatic data over large regions, providing different interpolation techniques for climate variables' use in agricultural research. Three interpolation approaches, like inverse distance weighted averaging, thin-plate smoothing splines, and co-kriging are evaluated for 4A degrees x 4A degrees area, covering the eastern part of India. The land use/land cover, soil texture, and digital elevation model are used as the independent variables for temperature modeling. Multiple regression analysis with standard method is used to add dependent variables into regression equation. Prediction of mean temperature for monsoon season is better than winter season. Finally standard deviation errors are evaluated after comparing the predicted temperature and observed temperature of the area. For better improvement, distance from the coastline and seasonal wind pattern are stressed to be included as independent variables.