Light airplanes provide a suitable platform for detailed investigation of fine scale thermal structures associated with the development of thermally driven flows in alpine valleys. The analysis of data collected during measurement flights performed at selected locations within various valleys close to Trento, in the Italian side of the Alps, are presented. Specific mathematical and numerical algorythms have been developed to evaluate physical quantities at any point within the atmospheric domain, especially where not closely explored by airborne measurements. Such procedures for obtaining three dimensional mapping of variables, like potential temperature or humidity, are based on a geostatistical technique known as Kriging (Wackernagel, 1995) and allow to evaluate first the intrinsic statistical structure of the spatial distribution of measured quantities (variograms) and then to estimate values of the same variable at unexplored locations on the basis of the above statistical structure by suitable weighted average of data recorded at close locations. The sensitivity of the method on the choice of proper length scales and main directions of variation is tested. Results thus obtained, including comparison with different methods previously adopted in the literature, are presented and discussed.

References Wackernagel, H., 1995, Multivariate Geostatistics, an introduction with applications, Springer

Figure 1 - Mapping of potential temperature over a valley cross-section from airborne measurements.