Abstract
This paper describes a method to combine geosynchronous infrared (IR) and low-orbit microwave data estimate rainfall, including mean monthly rainfall useful for climate studies. The IR data have the advanrage of high time resolution (important for rapidly changing precipitation patterns and for the detection of diurnal signals), but lack of strong physical connection between the remotely sensed signal and the surface rainfall. The microwave data provide a stronger relation between the radiance and the rainfall, but provide poor sampling of the rainfall signal. Initially the estimates are computed separately using hourly IR data from the Japanese GMS geosynchrnous satellite and microwave data from the SSM/I instrument on broard the DMSP satellite. Calibration or adjustment factors are derived by dividing the microwave monthly estimate by a second IR estimate (made with the microwave sampling). The spatial array of coefficients are then multiplied by the original IR monthly estimates (produced from all the hourly data) to produce the merged IR/microwave monthly estimates.
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