Chapter 1 — Question 6

Assume the El Niño project is operating with just four buoys, and not 70, and their
location is as in Figure 1.4. We have already computed the average SST’s for the month
December 1997, which are provided in the table below. Answer the following questions:

• What is the expected average SST of the illustrated location that is precisely in the
middle of the four buoys?

• What can be said about the expected SST of the illustrated location that is closer
to buoy B0341? Make an educated guess at the temperature that could have been
observed there.

30°N

20°N

10°N B0871 B0341

•
0° •
B8391 B9033
10°S

20°S

30°S
120°E 140°E 160°E 180° 160°W 140°W 120°W 100°W 80°W

Buoy Position SST

B0341 (160◦ W, 6◦ N) 30.18◦ C
B0871 (180◦ , 6◦ N) 28.34◦ C
B8391 (180◦ , 6◦ S) 25.28◦ C
B9033 (160◦ W, 6◦ S) 28.12◦ C

Answer
We apply the spatial autocorrelation principle: unknown values are likely similar
or equal to known, nearby values.
For the middle location, since we have a continuous field, we can take the
average of the four known, buoy values:
30.18 + 28.34 + 25.28 + 28.12
= 27.98.
4
Observe that by doing so, we assume the buoy values affect the SST in the
middle location equally. In other words, they have equal weight.

For the location close to B0341, we expect the SST value to be closer to that
of B0341. This means it is likely closer to the measured 30.18 ◦ C measured there.
A technique known as inverse distance weighting will use distance from the
location to the four respective buoys as weight factor . . . See page 302 of the
electronic book.

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 Finally, observe that inverse distance weighting, when applied for the middle
location, would give rise to the simple average formula above. In other words,
it is a special case of it.

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