Abstract
Abstract After the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission in 2014, many satellite precipitation products (SPPs) are available at finer spatiotemporal resolution and/or with reduced latency, potentially increasing the applicability of SPPs for near-real-time (NRT) applications. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the NRT SPPs in the GPM era and investigate whether bias-correction techniques or merging of the individual products can increase the accuracy of these SPPs for NRT applications. This study utilizes five commonly used NRT SPPs, namely, CMOPRH RT, GSMaP NRT, IMERG EARLY, IMERG LATE, and PERSIANN-CCS. The evaluation is done for the Kinu basin region in Japan, an area that provides observed rainfall data with high accuracy in space and time. The selected bias correction techniques are the ratio bias correction and cumulative distribution function matching, while the merged products are derived with the error variance, inverse error variance weighting, and simple average merging techniques. Based on the results, all SPPs perform best for lower-intensity rainfall events and have challenges in providing accurate estimates for typhoon-induced rainfall (generally more than 50% underestimation) and at very fine temporal scales. Although the bias correction techniques successfully reduce the bias and improve the performance of the SPPs for coarse temporal scales, it is found that for shorter than 6-hourly temporal resolutions, both techniques are in general unable to bring improvements. Finally, the merging results in increased accuracy for all temporal scales, giving new perspectives in utilizing SPPs for NRT applications, such as flood and drought monitoring and early warning systems.
Highlights
Denotes content that is immediately available upon publication as open access.Precipitation is a major component of the global water cycle and the main forcing in hydrological processes
It should be noted that the results of this study refer to the specific versions of the satellite precipitation products (SPPs) that are used for the analysis
This study evaluates the performance of five NRT SPPs in the Kinu basin region in Japan, including the use of two bias correction techniques and three merging methods that are applied taking into consideration the temporal and spatial variability on the SPPs’ performance
Summary
Denotes content that is immediately available upon publication as open access.Precipitation is a major component of the global water cycle and the main forcing in hydrological processes. Due to the limited availability of adequate ground-based observations in many areas and the advances in remote sensing, there is an increasing interest in satellite precipitation products (SPPs). These products have near-global coverage, are freely available, and provide rainfall estimates at reasonably fine spatial and temporal resolution. There exists an extensive literature related to the evaluation of these products and/or the possibility of using them in hydrological applications in different areas, as, for example, for catchments in Asia (Xue et al 2013; Long et al 2016; Kim et al 2017), South America (Collischonn et al 2008; Dinku et al 2010), North America (Yilmaz et al 2005), Africa (Stisen and Sandholt 2010), Australia (Woldemeskel et al 2013), and Europe (Lo Conti et al 2014; Duan et al 2016)
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