Year 2000 Data Update and Model Evaluation
On October 16, 2001 the air temperature database was updated to include the year 2000 data.
All Montana air temperature data for the entire decade of the 1980's were also added at this time.
The minimum data requirement of 0.5 year was dropped.
The number of stations increased from 233 to 274.
The number of recorded temperatures increased from 1,469,092 to 3,186,120.
These data now contain 75.79% of the potential temperature measurements.
The locations of the 274 stations are shown in the following map.
A few stations are hidden because of there close proximity to other stations.
There is also a version with the stations listed by name.
No adjustments in the model parameters were made for these new data.
The mean absolute error for the best-case situation remained at 0.054°F
as would be expected for this kriging model.
In the jackknife or worse-case situation, the mean absolute error with the expanded database
is 3.28°F compared to 3.27°F with the training dataset.
This favorable result is not a given and it indicates that the model and its parameters are
robust and work for the new data just as well as for the old data.
27 AUG 2001, updated on 31 OCT 2001
dlg@rapid.msu.montana.edu