I have a dataset in the WGS84 geographic coordinate system that I would like to interpolate along a grid using Python.

It appears gdal_grid is not available through the Python bindings, so I plan to use another 2D interpolation method after rasterizing the data.

To rasterize the data, I plan to re-project it using pyproj, then write it to a raster using the gdal python bindings. The UTM projection coordinate system seems like it would be the best projection, but my data spans the North Atlantic (i.e. multiple UTM zones).

I'm open to suggestion on the interpolation method, but I had planned to use an inverse distance interpolation (as shown here). These are presence absence sightings data from ship cruise tracks, which do not necessarily follow lines of latitude. They span from latitudes in the mid 70's to mid 50's.

What projection would be best to use?