VALIDATION OF SATELLITE PRECIPITATION USING TRMM RECENT PRODUCTS

摘要

Rainfall, which is sub-precipitation that occurs highly in tropical region, plays a vital role for earth energy balance and living creature. With the advance of satellite, rainfall over large area coverage can be measured in a better spatial resolution. In every released of data Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) such as 3B43 product series, an improvement from the previous version is very substantial, particularly in better algorithm. This article presents the validation of latest TRMM satellite-based 3B43 v7 product for localizing error in Peninsular Malaysia. The validation time range covers from 2000-2010 were evaluated with a total of 26 sets of rain gauge observation recorded by Malaysia Meteorological Department (MMD). The main objective of this study is to validate the TRMM 3B43-v7 product against corresponding in-situ measured rainfall. It is found that version 7 is improved in terms of spatial distribution (61.53% stations reduction) when analysed using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), lowering maximum bias (111.87mm to 81.67). Despite the changes occurrences, the value is at maximum A0.2 in correlation aspect. However, in Nash-sutcliffe (Nr) correlation, 53.84% stations were under estimate and perform low. Only 46.15% stations show good agreement for hydrological purpose, which is still reasonable. It is recommended that the TRMM data calibrated for operational hydrometeorology applications.