The TRMM 3B42 is a gridded 3 hourly data archive that is being provided to the research community at a horizontal resolution of 25 Km. These estimates are produced in four stages; (1) the microwave estimates precipitation are calibrated and combined, (2) infrared precipitation estimates are created using the calibrated microwave precipitation, (3) the microwave and IR estimates are combined, and (4) rescaling to monthly data is applied. Each precipitation field is best interpreted as the precipitation rate effective at the nominal observation time. These gridded estimates are on a 3-hour temporal resolution and a 0.25-degree by 0.25-degree spatial resolution in a global belt extending from 50°S to 50°N latitude. Given a rich data base (India Meteorological Department, IMD) of 2100 well distributed rain gauges over India (Rajeevan et. al. 2006), it is possible to reexamine the TRMM-3B42 data at a very high resolution (25 Km and 3 hours) over land areas. This is a statistical regression exercise which shows the local correction for the TRMM 3B42 rain over India. A further validation of this product is demonstrated from daily rainfall prediction using a suite of operational multimodels.

Date Published: 3 December 2008
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7148, Remote Sensing and Modeling of the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Interactions II, 71480H (3 December 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.806428

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7148:
Remote Sensing and Modeling of the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Interactions II
Tiruvalam N. Krishnamurti; B. N. Goswami; Akiyo Yatagai, Editor(s)