GPRChinaTemp1km: a high-resolution monthly air temperature dataset for China (1951–2020) based on machine learning

Abstract. An accurate spatially continuous air temperature dataset is crucial for multiple applications in environmental and ecological sciences. Existing spatial interpolation methods have relatively low accuracy and the resolution of available long-term gridded products of air temperature for China is coarse. Point observations from meteorological stations can provide long-term air temperature data series but cannot represent spatially continuous information. Here, we devised a method for spatial interpolation of air temperature data from meteorological stations based on powerful machine learning tools. First, to determine the optimal method for interpolation of air temperature data, we employed three machine learning models: random forest, support vector machine, and Gaussian process regression. Comparison of the mean absolute error, root mean square error, coefficient of determination, and residuals revealed that Gaussian process regression had high accuracy and clearly outperformed the other two models regarding interpolation of monthly maximum, minimum, and mean air temperatures. The machine learning methods were compared with three traditional methods used frequently for spatial interpolation: inverse distance weighting, ordinary kriging, and ANUSPLIN. Results showed that the Gaussian process regression model had higher accuracy and greater robustness than the traditional methods regarding interpolation of monthly maximum, minimum, and mean air temperatures in each month. Comparison with the TerraClimate, FLDAS, and ERA5 datasets revealed that the accuracy of the temperature data generated using the Gaussian process regression model was higher. Finally, using the Gaussian process regression method, we produced a long-term (January 1951 to December 2020) gridded monthly air temperature dataset with 1 km resolution and high accuracy for China, which we named GPRChinaTemp1km. The dataset consists of three variables: monthly mean air temperature, monthly maximum air temperature, and monthly minimum air temperature. The obtained GPRChinaTemp1km data were used to analyse the spatiotemporal variations of air temperature using Theil–Sen median trend analysis in combination with the Mann–Kendall test. It was found that the monthly mean and minimum air temperatures across China were characterized by a significant trend of increase in each month, whereas monthly maximum air temperature showed a more spatially heterogeneous pattern with significant increase, non-significant increase, and non-significant decrease. The GPRChinaTemp1km dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5112122 (He et al., 2021a) for monthly maximum air temperature, at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5111989 (He et al., 2021b) for monthly mean air temperature and at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5112232 (He et al., 2021c) for monthly minimum air temperature.