A STATISTICAL MODEL OF THE TEMPERATURE FIELD AT SUPERSONIC AIRCRAFT ALTITUDES

: Data archives are such that, for a selected cruising level, a reasonably large sample of daily average temperatures along a specific route can be obtained and summarized into a frequency distribution. But if, as in Air Force operations, many different and constantly changing routes are involved, then the climatologic tools and methods must be such as to provide estimates of the route average temperature without recourse to the archives and the processing of raw data. A method was devised that utilizes a model of the horizontal spatial correlations of temperature. It was demonstrated on a continent-wide area, and shows promise of hemisphere-wide application.