The global precipitation mission-microwave rainfall retrievals and error models

摘要

The planned Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) consists of a core satellite carrying a state-of-the-art dual frequency precipitation radar and a passive microwave radiometer. In addition, the GPM concept uses a constellation of satellites carrying passive microwave radiometers in order to achieve three hourly rainfall sampling. This constellation consists of radiometers on operational satellites such as the current SSM/I series, as well as some that are planned specifically as part of the GPM mission. As such, GPM is both a satellite "mission", as well as a concept designed to combine the many international assets into a coherent framework. In order to achieve this conceptual benefit, however, it is imperative that we develop algorithms and error models that allow a coherent description of rainfall to emerge from wide ranging sets of sensor capabilities. This paper will discuss work being performed to develop such a framework for the algorithms.