Towards topoclimate maps of frost and frost risk for Southland, New Zealand

Abstract

The spatial distribution of radiation frosts is closely associated with topographic patterns, and this link makes frost an obvious candidate for topoclimate mapping. There are several potential approaches involving field studies, numerical modelling and/or satellite imagery. For southern New Zealand, the Topoclimate South data set of 223 million temperature values provides an opportunity to map frost and frost risk information. To date, only a few exploratory studies have been undertaken. These typically involve only a few of the 2550 available sites and/or only a single night. Nevertheless, initial investigations indicate that frost mapping in Southland is likely to be a fruitful and interesting topic of study. Funding has recently been obtained to set up a coherent database to contain the data set, and this will greatly help future research in this area.