Abstract
This study evaluates the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) satellite precipitation estimates over Australia across an 18 year period from 2001 to 2018. The evaluation was performed on a monthly time scale and used both point and gridded rain gauge data as the reference dataset. Overall statistics demonstrated that satellite precipitation estimates did exhibit skill over Australia and that gauge-blending yielded a notable increase in performance. Dependencies of performance on geography, season, and rainfall intensity were also investigated. The skill of satellite precipitation detection was reduced in areas of elevated topography and where cold frontal rainfall was the main precipitation source. Areas where rain gauge coverage was sparse also exhibited reduced skill. In terms of seasons, the performance was relatively similar across the year, with austral summer (DJF) exhibiting slightly better performance. The skill of the satellite precipitation estimates was highly dependent on rainfall intensity. The highest skill was obtained for moderate rainfall amounts (2–4 mm/day). There was an overestimation of low-end rainfall amounts and an underestimation in both the frequency and amount for high-end rainfall. Overall, CMORPH and GSMaP datasets were evaluated as useful sources of satellite precipitation estimates over Australia.
Highlights
Precipitation is an essential climate variable and is one of the most important climate variables affecting human activities [1]
The conventional method of using rain gauges to estimate spatial patterns of rainfall provides a direct measurement of surface rainfall but spatial density can be an issue across many parts of the world, including over the oceans, where the installation of an adequate rain gauge network is economically or physically unfeasible [2]
The main orographic feature occurs in the form of the Great Dividing Range (GDR), a mountain range along the eastern side of the country that extends more than 3500 km from the north-eastern tip of Queensland, towards and along the coast of New South Wales, and into the eastern and central parts of Victoria
Summary
Precipitation is an essential climate variable and is one of the most important climate variables affecting human activities [1]. The conventional method of using rain gauges to estimate spatial patterns of rainfall provides a direct measurement of surface rainfall but spatial density can be an issue across many parts of the world, including over the oceans, where the installation of an adequate rain gauge network is economically or physically unfeasible [2]. This greatly affects the ability to accurately assess rainfall across a region as it is a variable that exhibits a high degree of spatial variation and a point-based measurement may not provide an ideal representation of an area. Groisman and Legates (1994) found biases due to wind-induced effects could be quite significant, especially around mountainous areas where the bias was as large as 40% [6]
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