How does topographic downscaling of the bottom temperature field work?
To capture some of the impact of terrain relief on bottom soil temperature field variability, you can turn the 'Bottom temperature topographic downscaling:' entry in the ldt.config file to "lapse-rate". You will also need to also turn on and read in an elevation map, preferably of higher resolution than your bottom temperature map. Then using the elevation file and the environmental lapse rate (~6.5 K/km), the bottom temperature file values are adjusted by the elevation values, representing what the soil temperature might reflect at a higher or lower elevation.