Error estimates for Hermite interpolation on spheres

In this paper, we prove convergence rates for spherical spline Hermite interpolation on the sphere Sd-1 via an error estimate given in a technical report by Luo and Levesley. The functionals in the Hermite interpolation are either point evaluations of pseudodifferential operators or rotational differential operators, the desirable feature of these operators being that they map polynomials to polynomials. Convergence rates for certain derivatives are given in terms of maximum point separation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.