Improving the usability of soil temperature information to support agricultural decision making

Soil temperature plays a major role in the agriculture industry as it affects management practices including planting and harvesting, soil and water conservation decisions, and crop rotations. Despite its importance to agriculture, there remains a dearth of soil temperature information in the United States. Soil temperature is monitored by multiple local- and state-level networks; however, few studies have attempted to use these observations to build a usable soil temperature climatology and prediction tool. We address this information gap in Illinois by developing a comprehensive, data-driven soil temperature climatology using decades’ worth of in situ observations from 19 sites that are part of the Illinois Climate Network and Water & Atmospheric Resources Monitoring (WARM) Program. In particular, we develop publicly available maps and figures of soil temperature averages and extremes, including probabilistic expectations of reaching critical temperature thresholds for agriculture, such as 50- and 60-degrees Fahrenheit. We also test a variety of spatial interpolation techniques to fill in data gaps between the 19 WARM stations in Illinois. Additionally, we test the predictability of soil temperature at 1- and 2-weeks. The soil temperature climatology and prediction tests will support agricultural decision making on multi-timescales in Illinois.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Atmospheric Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Mason, Bridgette Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ford, Trenton W

• Soil Temperature
• Climatology
• Interpolation
• Prediction
• Illinois
• Agriculture

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Bridgette Mason

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121453

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121453