Title
Processing of Daily Agroclimatic Data
Abstract
Soil quality models developed for EcoDistrict polygons (EDP) and the polygons of the Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) to monitor the concentration of soil organic matter require daily climate data as input. This thesis (i) provides a method which interpolates the daily station data onto the 149 EDP and 894 SLC polygons, and the 6,900 townships of the province of Alberta, to be used as realistic climate input for soil quality models and drought management, and (ii) describes the implementation of the methods and strategies employed to handle the large amount of data spanning 1 January 1901 to 31 December 2000. The procedure interpolates station data onto a dense network of grid points and then averages the grid point values inside polygons, or assigns them to townships. Two common interpolation methods for spatial data are used, nearest-station assignment and inverse-distance weighting, as well as a hybrid method to handle temporal and spatial variance. The methods are applied to the daily data of maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, and total incoming solar radiation, from stations contained within the latitude-longitude box (45°–64°N, 116°–124°W). The interpolated data sets and related documentation are available from Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Conservation and Development Branch.
Author
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Griffith, Darren Paul, 2002: Processing of Daily Agroclimatic Data. Masters thesis of the University of Alberta.