Assessment of satellite-based precipitation estimates over Paraguay

Abstract

Satellite-based precipitation estimates represent a potential alternative source of input data in a plethora of meteorological and hydrological applications, especially in regions characterized by a low density of rain gauge stations. Paraguay provides a good example of a case where the use of satellite-based precipitation could be advantageous. This study aims to evaluate the version 7 of the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA V7; 3B42 V7) and the version 1.0 of the purely satellite-based product of the Climate Prediction Center Morphing Technique (CMORPH RAW) through their comparison with daily in situ precipitation measurements from 1998 to 2012 over Paraguay. The statistical assessment is conducted with several commonly used indexes. Specifically, to evaluate the accuracy of daily precipitation amounts, mean error (ME), root mean square error (RMSE), BIAS, and coefficient of determination (R2) are used, and to analyze the capability to correctly detect different precipitation intensities, false alarm ratio (FAR), frequency bias index (FBI), and probability of detection (POD) are applied to various rainfall rates (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, and 80 mm/day). Results indicate that TMPA V7 has a better performance than CMORPH RAW over Paraguay. TMPA V7 has higher accuracy in the estimation of daily rainfall volumes and greater precision in the detection of wet days (> 0 mm/day). However, both satellite products show a lower ability to appropriately detect high intensity precipitation events.