Evaluation of IMERG satellite precipitation over the land-coast-ocean continuum – Part I: Detection

As a fundamental water flux, quantitative understanding of precipitation is important to understand and manage water systems under a changing climate, especially in transition regions such as the coastal interface between land and ocean. This work aims to assess the uncertainty in precipitation detection over the land-coast-ocean continuum in the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) V06B. It is examined over three coastal regions of the U.S., i.e. the West Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast, each of which are characterized by different topographies and precipitation climatologies. Detection capabilities are contrasted over different surfaces (land, coast, ocean). A novel and integrated approach traces the IMERG detection performance back to its components (passive microwave, infrared, and morphing-based estimates). The analysis is performed by using high-resolution, high-quality Ground Validation Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (GV-MRMS) rainfall estimates as ground reference. The best detection performances are reported with PMW estimates (hit rates in the range of [25-39]%), followed by morphing ([20-34]%), morphing+IR ([17-27]%) and IR ([11-16]%) estimates. Precipitation formation mechanisms play an important role, especially in the West Coast where orographic processes challenge detection. Further, precipitation typology is shown to be a strong driver of IMERG detection. Over the ocean, IMERG detection is generally better but suffers from false alarms ([10-53]%). Overall, IMERG displays nonhomogeneous precipitation detection capabilities tracing back to its components. Results point toward a similar behavior across various land-coast-ocean continuum regions of the CONUS, which suggests that results can be potentially transferred to other coastal regions of the world.