Physical properties of maritime low clouds as retrieved by combined use of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager and Visible/Infrared Scanner 2. Climatology of warm clouds and rain

2002 ◽  
Vol 107 (D19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirohiko Masunaga
2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumie A. Furuzawa ◽  
Kenji Nakamura

Abstract It is well known that precipitation rate estimation is poor over land. Using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar (PR) and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), the performance of the TMI rain estimation was investigated. Their differences over land were checked by using the orbit-by-orbit data for June 1998, December 1998, January 1999, and February 1999, and the following results were obtained: 1) Rain rate (RR) near the surface for the TMI (TMI-RR) is smaller than that for the PR (PR-RR) in winter; it is also smaller from 0900 to 1800 LT. These dependencies show some variations at various latitudes or local times. 2) When the storm height is low (<5 km), the TMI-RR is smaller than the PR-RR; when it is high (>8 km), the PR-RR is smaller. These dependencies of the RR on the storm height do not depend on local time or latitude. The tendency for a TMI-RR to be smaller when the storm height is low is more noticeable in convective rain than in stratiform rain. 3) Rain with a low storm height predominates in winter or from 0600 to 1500 LT, and convective rain occurs frequently from 1200 to 2100 LT. Result 1 can be explained by results 2 and 3. It can be concluded that the TMI underestimates rain with low storm height over land because of the weakness of the TMI algorithm, especially for convective rain. On the other hand, it is speculated that TMI overestimates rain with high storm height because of the effect of anvil rain with low brightness temperatures at high frequencies without rain near the surface, and because of the effect of evaporation or tilting, which is indicated by a PR profile and does not appear in the TMI profile. Moreover, it was found that the PR rain for the cases with no TMI rain amounted to about 10%–30% of the total but that the TMI rain for the cases with no PR rain accounted for only a few percent of the TMI rain. This result can be explained by the difficulty of detecting shallow rain with the TMI.


1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Shibata ◽  
Keiji Imaoka ◽  
Misako Kachi ◽  
Hiroshi Murakami

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (17) ◽  
pp. 6882-6902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank J. Wentz

Abstract The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite began operating in December 1997 and was shut down on 8 April 2015. Over the oceans, the microwave (MW) sensor aboard TRMM measures sea surface temperature, wind speed, and rain rate as well as atmospheric columnar water vapor and cloud liquid water. Improved calibration methods are applied to the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), and a 17-yr climate record of these environmental parameters is produced so as to be consistent with the climate records from 13 other MW sensors. These TMI retrievals are validated relative to in situ observations over its 17-yr mission life. All indications point to TMI being an extremely stable sensor capable of providing satellite climate records of unprecedented length and accuracy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 2339-2358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anil Deo ◽  
S. Joseph Munchak ◽  
Kevin J. E. Walsh

AbstractThis study cross validates the radar reflectivity Z; the rainfall drop size distribution parameter (median volume diameter Do); and the rainfall rate R estimated from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite Precipitation Radar (PR), a combined PR and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) algorithm (COM), and a C-band dual-polarized ground radar (GR) for TRMM overpasses during the passage of tropical cyclone (TC) and non-TC events over Darwin, Australia. Two overpass events during the passage of TC Carlos and 11 non-TC overpass events are used in this study, and the GR is taken as the reference. It is shown that the correspondence is dependent on the precipitation type whereby events with more (less) stratiform rainfall usually have a positive (negative) bias in the reflectivity and the rainfall rate, whereas in the Do the bias is generally positive but small (large). The COM reflectivity estimates are similar to the PR, but it has a smaller bias in the Do for most of the greater stratiform events. This suggests that combining the TMI with the PR adjusts the Do toward the “correct” direction if the GR is taken as the reference. Moreover, the association between the TRMM estimates and the GR for the two TC events, which are highly stratiform in nature, is similar to that observed for the highly stratiform non-TC events (there is no significant difference), but it differs considerably from that observed for the majority of the highly convective non-TC events.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 909-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirohiko Masunaga ◽  
Christian D. Kummerow

Abstract A methodology to analyze precipitation profiles using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) and precipitation radar (PR) is proposed. Rainfall profiles are retrieved from PR measurements, defined as the best-fit solution selected from precalculated profiles by cloud-resolving models (CRMs), under explicitly defined assumptions of drop size distribution (DSD) and ice hydrometeor models. The PR path-integrated attenuation (PIA), where available, is further used to adjust DSD in a manner that is similar to the PR operational algorithm. Combined with the TMI-retrieved nonraining geophysical parameters, the three-dimensional structure of the geophysical parameters is obtained across the satellite-observed domains. Microwave brightness temperatures are then computed for a comparison with TMI observations to examine if the radar-retrieved rainfall is consistent in the radiometric measurement space. The inconsistency in microwave brightness temperatures is reduced by iterating the retrieval procedure with updated assumptions of the DSD and ice-density models. The proposed methodology is expected to refine the a priori rain profile database and error models for use by parametric passive microwave algorithms, aimed at the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, as well as a future TRMM algorithms.


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