journal article·2026-02-10Open access

Spatiotemporal Interpolation of Meteorological Fields in Complex Terrain Using Deep Graph Neural Networks

Xiliang Hou, Weijia Lin, Guanyu Qu, Zhezhong Guan, Xiaochun Ye, Chuhan Lu

Applied Sciences· Volume 16· Issue 4

Abstract

To address sparse meteorological data and the “smoothing effect” over complex terrain, this study proposes a spatiotemporal model based on a Diffusion Graph Convolutional Network (DG model). Focusing on Quanzhou, China, and using 2020–2024 data from 198 stations, the model integrates diffusion graph convolution and residual learning to capture nonlinear meteorological patterns. Ensemble experiments (100 iterations) demonstrate that the DG model significantly outperforms Ordinary Kriging and the KCN baseline in stability and accuracy. Specifically, it improves mountainous temperature prediction by 23.4% (40.0% vs. KCN) through terrain-adaptive weighting, effectively reproducing physical distribution characteristics. Furthermore, the model reduces inherent ERA5 reanalysis bias by integrating historical station data while maintaining background consistency. Validated against spatial-only (OSI) and temporal-only (OTI) variants, the DG model offers a robust approach for high-resolution meteorological reconstruction in complex terrain.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations · Climate variability and models · Remote Sensing in Agriculture

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Nan’an Meteorological Bureau of Fujian Province, Nan’an, Quanzhou 362300, China

State Key Laboratory of Climate System Prediction and Risk Management, Nanjing 210044, China

Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education, Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

Funding

Science and Technology Development Program of the “Taihu Light” · Research on Quanzhou Urban Air Quality Forecasting Model · “Qing Lan” Project of Jiangsu Province for C.H.LU · Wuxi University Research Start-up Fund for Introduced Talents

References (16)

Show source-provided references
1. Deep learning for spatiotemporal forecasting in Earth system science: A review10.1080/17538947.2024.2391952 ↗
2. Wang, Y., Liu, X., Liu, R., and Zhang, Z. (2024). Research progress on spatiotemporal interpolation methods for meteorological elements. Water, 16.10.3390/w16060818 ↗
3. An operational objective analysis system10.1175/1520-0493(1959)087<0367:AOOAS>2.0.CO;2 ↗
4. Mapping temperature using kriging with external drift: Theory and an example from Scotland10.1002/joc.3370140107 ↗
5. Forecasting temperature and rainfall using deep learning for the challenging climates of Northern India10.7717/peerj-cs.3012 ↗
6. Sit, M., Demiray, B.Z., and Demir, I. (2022). A systematic review of deep learning applications in interpolation and extrapolation of precipitation data. EarthArXiv.10.31223/X57H2H ↗
7. Wu, Y., Zhuang, D., Labbe, A., and Sun, L. (2021, January 2–9). Inductive graph neural networks for spatiotemporal kriging. Proceedings of the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Online.10.1609/aaai.v35i5.16575 ↗
8. Learning skillful medium-range global weather forecasting10.1126/science.adi2336 ↗
9. Appleby, G., Liu, L., and Liu, L.P. (2020, January 7–12). Kriging convolutional networks. Proceedings of the 34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, New York, NY, USA.10.1609/aaai.v34i04.5716 ↗
10. Zheng, Z., Liu, Y., and Li, J. (2025). Mesh Interpolation Graph Network for Dynamic and Spatially Irregular Global Weather Forecasting. arXiv.
11. Nag, P. (2025). Spatio-temporal DeepKriging in PyTorch: A Supplementary Application to Precipitation Data for Interpolation and Probabilistic Forecasting. arXiv.
12. Miralles, O., Nerini, D., Bhend, J., Raoult, B., and Spirig, C. (2025). Observation-guided Interpolation Using Graph Neural Networks for High-Resolution Nowcasting in Switzerland. arXiv.10.1175/AIES-D-25-0081.1 ↗
13. Jeong, M., and Koo, H. (2025). Evaluating Spatio-Temporal Kriging with Machine Learning Considering the Sources of Spatio-Temporal Variation. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf., 14.10.3390/ijgi14060224 ↗
14. A spatial interpolation method for meteorological data based on a hybrid Kriging and machine learning approach10.1002/joc.8641 ↗
15. The ERA5 global reanalysis10.1002/qj.3803 ↗
16. Discussion on feasibility of gridding the historic temperature data in China with Kriging method