Satellite estimation of precipitation over land

Abstract

The availability of satellite-derived rainfall products to hydrologists and other natural scientists has increased enormously in the last five years. The purpose of this paper is to review concisely the current state-of-the-art of satellite precipitation estimation over land and the availability of standard products, and to highlight some of the strengths and limitations of satellite-derived rainfall data for hydrological applications. Methods based on infrared, visible and passive microwave radiation measurements are discussed. Results of several international activities aimed at evaluating the performance of the estimation algorithms are briefly summarized. Estimation satellitaire des précipitations terrestres Résumé La disponibilité pour les hydrologues et les autres spécialistes des sciences naturelles de produits concernant les précipitations, élaborés à partir de données satellitaires, a énormément augmenté au cours des cinq dernières années. Le but de cet article est de faire succinctement le point sur l'estimation satellitaire des précipitations terrestres ainsi que sur la disponibilité des produits courants, et de souligner les points forts et les limites des estimations satellitaires des précipitations en vue d'applications hydrologiques. Les méthodes basées sur la mesure de rayonnements infrarouges, visibles ou micro-ondes sont examinées. Les résultats de plusieurs actions internationales visant à évaluer les performances des algorithmes d'estimation sont brièvement résumées.

Global gridded precipitation over land: a description of the new GPCC First Guess Daily product

“…Satellite data bear the advantage of a very good spatial coverage compared to rain gauges that are restricted to the land surfaces of the globe and can be rather sparse especially in developing countries and sparsely settled regions. However, their uncertainty is particularly high due to the indirect precipitation estimation method (Petty and Krajewski, 1996;Kidd et al, 2011). Moreover, the relatively short existence of satellites yields only few time series exceeding 30 yr.…”

Performance Assessment of Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) Product over India

“…Performance evaluations of these products over varying geographical extents equip algorithm developers to examine the underlying complex error characteristics [32][33][34]. From a data producer's perspective, error estimate is crucial information used towards creating a better product with higher spatial and temporal resolution.…”

Multiregional Satellite Precipitation Products Evaluation over Complex Terrain

“…Therefore, evaluation of these products over multiple regions will provide comprehensive error characteristics to the algorithm developers. SBR products have been evaluated for different continental regimes in the past two decades (Petty and Krajewski 1996;Anagnostou 2004;Tian et al 2007). Regional studies have been conducted over the continental United States (CONUS; McCollum et al 2002;Gottschalck et al 2005;Hossain and Huffman 2008;Anagnostou et al 2010), South America (Su et al 2008;Dinku et al 2010;Scheel et al 2011), Europe (Stampoulis and Anagnostou 2012;Mei et al 2014;Derin and Yilmaz 2014), Africa (Dinku et al 2007(Dinku et al , 2008Hirpa et al 2010;Thiemig et al 2012;Habib et al 2012;Milewski et al 2015), and Asia (Chen et al 2013;Yong et al 2013).…”