Assessment and Comparison of TMPA Satellite Precipitation Products in Varying Climatic and Topographic Regimes in Morocco

Abstract

TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) satellite precipitation products have been utilized to quantify, forecast, or understand precipitation patterns, climate change, hydrologic models, and drought in numerous scientific investigations. The TMPA products recently went through a series of algorithm developments to enhance the accuracy and reliability of high-quality precipitation measurements, particularly in low rainfall environments and complex terrain. In this study, we evaluated four TMPA products (3B42: V6, V7temp, V7, RTV7) against 125 rain gauges in Northern Morocco to assess the accuracy of TMPA products in various regimes, examine the performance metrics of new algorithm developments, and assess the impact of the processing error in 2012. Results show that the research products outperform the real-time products in all environments within Morocco, and the newest algorithm development (3B42 V7) outperforms the previous version (V6), particularly in low rainfall and high-elevation environments. TMPA products continue to overestimate precipitation in arid environments and underestimate it in high-elevation areas. Lastly, the temporary processing error resulted in little bias except in arid environments. These results corroborate findings from previous studies, provide scientific data for the Middle East, highlight the difficulty of using TMPA products in varying conditions, and present preliminary research for future algorithm development for the GPM mission. OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 5698

Evaluation and Comparison of TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Products With Reference to Rain Gauge Observations in Hunza River Basin, Karakoram Range, Northern Pakistan

“…Results indicated that the accuracy was higher on basin scale compared with pixel scale and overall performance of monthly 3B42V7 estimates was better than that of monthly 3B42V6 and 3B42RT data. These findings are consistent with previous literature [14,18].…”

“…A large number of studies have evaluated the performance of 3V42V6 in many parts of world [11][12][13][14][15]. Although some studies have also documented the performance of 3B42V7 in different regions of the world [14][15][16][17][18], limited studies have reported on its performance relative to its predecessor (3B42V6) and near real time product (3B42RT) in complex terrain regions having cryospheric environment. Thus, a river basin situated in the high mountains of Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalayan (HKH) region [15,19] has been chosen for undertaking a comprehensive and comparative assessment of TMPA products with a wide variety of statistical indicators.…”

Evaluation of IMERG and TRMM 3B43 Monthly Precipitation Products over Mainland China

“…Many previous studies [18,[45][46][47][48][49] have used gauge measurements to validate the accuracy of TMPA products. In this study, the error characteristics of IMERG monthly precipitation products over Mainland China were evaluated using gauge measurements at multiple spatiotemporal scales.…”

Satellite-Based Run-Off Model for Monitoring Drought in Peninsular Malaysia

“…Recent studies have linked rainfall deficits, soil thermal stress and vegetation growth and mortality to drought [2,3,[5][6][7]9,11,12,15,20,25,[27][28][29][30][31][32]36,[50][51][52], highlighting the need for operational drought monitoring systems that can show drought intensity, location and extent [16]. In response, this study devised an operational procedure and algorithm, a run-off model, from TMPA rainfall and MODIS evapotranspiration products for spatiotemporal drought assessment (Figures 3 and 4).…”