Abstract:
The accuracy of reconstructing missing daily
temperature extremes in the Jaffna climatological station,
situated in the northern part of the dry zone of Sri Lanka,
is presented. The adopted method utilizes standard depar tures of daily maximum and minimum temperature values
at four neighbouring stations, Mannar, Anuradhapura,
Puttalam and Trincomalee to estimate the standard depar tures of daily maximum and minimum temperatures at the
target station, Jaffna. The daily maximum and minimum
temperatures from 1966 to 1980 (15 years) were used to
test the validity of the method. The accuracy of the esti mation is higher for daily maximum temperature com pared to daily minimum temperature. About 95% of the
estimated daily maximum temperatures are within ±1.5 °C
of the observed values. For daily minimum temperature,
the percentage is about 92. By calculating the standard
deviation of the difference in estimated and observed
values, we have shown that the error in estimating the
daily maximum and minimum temperatures is ±0.7 and
±0.9 °C, respectively. To obtain the best accuracy when
estimating the missing daily temperature extremes, it is
important to include Mannar which is the nearest station
to the target station, Jaffna. We conclude from the analy sis that the method can be applied successfully to recon struct the missing daily temperature extremes in Jaffna
where no data is available due to frequent disruptions
caused by civil unrests and hostilities in the region during
the period, 1984 to 2000.
