Evaluation of the successive V6 and V7 TRMM multisatellite precipitation analysis over the Continental United States

Abstract

The spatial error structure of surface precipitation derived from successive versions of the TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) algorithms are systematically studied through comparison with the Climate Prediction Center Unified Gauge daily precipitation Analysis (CPCUGA) over the Continental United States (CONUS) for 3 years from June 2008 to May 2011. The TMPA products include the version‐6(V6) and version‐7(V7) real‐time products 3B42RT (3B42RTV6 and 3B42RTV7) and research products 3B42 (3B42V6 and 3B42V7). The evaluation shows that 3B42V7 improves upon 3B42V6 over the CONUS regarding 3 year mean daily precipitation: the correlation coefficient (CC) increases from 0.85 in 3B42V6 to 0.92 in 3B42V7; the relative bias (RB) decreases from −22.95% in 3B42V6 to −2.37% in 3B42V7; and the root mean square error (RMSE) decreases from 0.80 in 3B42V6 to 0.48 mm in 3B42V7. Distinct improvement is notable in the mountainous West especially along the coastal northwest mountainous areas, whereas 3B42V6 (also 3B42RTV6 and 3B42RTV7) largely underestimates: the CC increases from 0.86 in 3B42V6 to 0.89 in 3B42V7, and the RB decreases from −44.17% in 3B42V6 to −25.88% in 3B42V7. Over the CONUS, 3B42RTV7 gained a little improvement over 3B42RTV6 as RB varies from −4.06% in 3B42RTV6 to 0.22% in 3B42RTV7. But there is more overestimation with the RB increasing from 8.18% to 14.92% (0.16–3.22%) over the central US (eastern).

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

“…The worse agreements between the two datasets (TMPA and gauge-based) were found in monsoon season on both pixel and basin scales. Recently, Anjum et al [15], Chen et al [16], and Derin et al [20] have also reported significant over and underestimations of observed seasonal precipitation by real and post real time TMPA products in different regions of the world.…”

“…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.…”

Error-Component Analysis of TRMM-Based Multi-Satellite Precipitation Estimates over Mainland China

“…Recently, these two quasi-global satellite precipitation products have been widely utilized in various hydrological and meteorological applications in China [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Over the years, there have been many efforts to compare and validate available satellite precipitation estimates at global, regional, or basin scales [9,10,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. An essential point when trying to evaluate the data accuracy is to know where the retrieval errors are coming from.…”

The Impact of Spatial and Temporal Resolutions in Tropical Summer Rainfall Distribution: Preliminary Results

“…Each precipitation field is best interpreted as the precipitation rate effective at the nominal observation time (Huffman, et al, 2007 (Chen, et al, 2013). And the IR data are from National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and Climate Prediction Center (CPC), which are calibrated by the Microwave data according to the algorithm.…”