Mean value splines and their use for climatological time series

Author(s)
Reinhold Steinacker
Abstract

A new approach of splines to examine climatological time series is introduced and different applications are shown. Instead of the classical spline-procedure to find polynomials which fit given values at certain points (knots), a variational formulation is used here, where a cost function is minimized to obtain smooth interpolated values at arbitrary points. The innovation of the method consists in the selection of the constraint, namely the conservation of mean values within certain smoothing intervals. The methodology allows a sound derivation of the past and present climate conditions in times of climate change. It allows a refined computation of extreme values and of the probability of certain temperature thresholds. The methodology furthermore allows to detect break points in climatological time series. Finally the method leads to a consistent interpolation of time series, which are only given by mean values. Several applications of the method, using climatological time series of Vienna are shown and discussed.

Organisation(s)
Department of Meteorology and Geophysics
Journal
International Journal of Climatology
Volume
43
Pages
4326-4336
No. of pages
11
ISSN
0899-8418
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8089
Publication date
2023
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
105206 Meteorology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Atmospheric Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/33d15c7c-250b-4210-a817-8d5ac8bc9770