TRMM Calibration of SSM/I Algorithm for Overland Rainfall Estimation

Abstract

This paper extends the work of Dinku and Anagnostou overland rain retrieval algorithm for use with Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) observations. In Dinku and Anagnostou, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar (PR) rainfall estimates were used to calibrate TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) retrieval. Regional differences in PR-based TMI calibration were investigated by testing the algorithm over four geographic regions, consisting of Africa, northern South America (containing the Amazon basin), the continental United States, and south Asia. In this paper the performance of Dinku and Anagnostou's technique applied on SSM/I data over three of these regions (Africa, Amazon, and South Asia) is demonstrated. Two approaches are investigated for using PR rainfall products to calibrate the algorithm parameters. In the first approach, TMI channels are remapped to the spatial resolutions of the corresponding SSM/I channels; then, PR is used to calibrate the rain retrieval on the remapped TMI data. In the second approach, the PR-based TMI algorithm calibration is performed at a coarser (0.25°) resolution. To assess the quality of algorithm estimates with respect to PR, rainfall fields derived from Dinku and Anagnostou, applied to SSM/I observations (using parameters determined from both approaches), are compared with matched (within ±15 min of the satellites' overpass time difference) PR surface rain rates. Calibration data come from the wet seasons (January–March) of 2000 and 2001. To assess the quality of the estimates with respect to PR, data from a 5-month period (December–April) of 2002, 2003, and 2004 are used. In comparison with the latest version of the Goddard profiling (GPROF) algorithm rain estimates, the current algorithm shows significant improvements in terms of both bias and random error reduction. The paper also shows that rain estimation based on TMI observations is associated with lower error statistics in comparison with the corresponding SSM/I retrievals.