A spline interpolation technique that preserves mass budgets Original Research Article

The usual practice of forcing budget models by linear interpolations of mean data does not produce a forcing whose mean is the data value required. The usual third-order spline is modified into a fourth-order spline, called mc-spline, to cope with this issue. The technique provides a smooth and faithful continuous interpolation of the original data that is well suited for its graphical representations or for the forcing of numerical models.