scholarly journals A Comparison Between Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation Data and High-Resolution Radar Data – A Case Study of Localized Torrential Rainfall over Japan

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 786-793
Author(s):  
Yoshiaki Hayashi ◽  
Taichi Tebakari ◽  
Akihiro Hashimoto ◽  
◽  

This paper presents a case study comparing the latest algorithm version of Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) data with C-band and X-band Multi-Parameter (MP) radar as high-resolution rainfall data in terms of localized heavy rainfall events. The study also obliged us to clarify the spatial and temporal resolution of GSMaP data using high-accuracy ground-based radar, and evaluate the performance and reporting frequency of GSMaP satellites. The GSMaP_Gauge_RNL data with less than 70 mm/day of daily rainfall was similar to the data of both radars, but the GSMaP_Gauge_RNL data with over 70 mm/day of daily rainfall was not, and the calibration by rain-gauge data was poor. Furthermore, both direct/indirect observations by the Global Precipitation Measurement/Microwave Imager (GPM/GMI) and the frequency thereof (once or twice) significantly affected the difference between GPM/GMI data and C-band radar data when the daily rainfall was less than 70 mm/day and the hourly rainfall was less than 20 mm/h. Therefore, it is difficult for GSMaP_Gauge to accurately estimate localized heavy rainfall with high-density particle precipitation.

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basile Pauthier ◽  
Benjamin Bois ◽  
Thierry Castel ◽  
D. Thévenin ◽  
Carmela Chateau Smith ◽  
...  

A 24-hour heavy rainfall event occurred in northeastern France from November 3 to 4, 2014. The accuracy of the quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) by PANTHERE and ANTILOPE radar-based gridded products during this particular event, is examined at both mesoscale and local scale, in comparison with two reference rain-gauge networks. Mesoscale accuracy was assessed for the total rainfall accumulated during the 24-hour event, using the Météo France operational rain-gauge network. Local scale accuracy was assessed for both total event rainfall and hourly rainfall accumulations, using the recently developed HydraVitis high-resolution rain gauge network Evaluation shows that (1) PANTHERE radar-based QPE underestimates rainfall fields at mesoscale and local scale; (2) both PANTHERE and ANTILOPE successfully reproduced the spatial variability of rainfall at local scale; (3) PANTHERE underestimates can be significantly improved at local scale by merging these data with rain gauge data interpolation (i.e., ANTILOPE). This study provides a preliminary evaluation of radar-based QPE at local scale, suggesting that merged products are invaluable for applications at very high resolution. The results obtained underline the importance of using high-density rain-gauge networks to obtain information at high spatial and temporal resolution, for better understanding of local rainfall variation, to calibrate remotely sensed rainfall products.


2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siti Mariam Saad ◽  
Abdul Aziz Jemain ◽  
Noriszura Ismail

This study evaluates the utility and suitability of a simple discrete multiplicative random cascade model for temporal rainfall disaggregation. Two of a simple random cascade model, namely log-Poisson and log-Normal  models are applied to simulate hourly rainfall from daily rainfall at seven rain gauge stations in Peninsular Malaysia. The cascade models are evaluated based on the capability to simulate data that preserve three important properties of observed rainfall: rainfall variability, intermittency and extreme events. The results show that both cascade models are able to simulate reasonably well the commonly used statistical measures for rainfall variability (e.g. mean and standard deviation) of hourly rainfall. With respect to rainfall intermittency, even though both models are underestimated, the observed dry proportion, log-Normal  model is likely to simulate number of dry spells better than log-Poisson model. In terms of rainfall extremes, it is demonstrated that log-Poisson and log-Normal  models gave a satisfactory performance for most of the studied stations herein, except for Dungun and Kuala Krai stations, which both located in the east part of Peninsula.


2018 ◽  
Vol 131 (4) ◽  
pp. 1035-1054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devajyoti Dutta ◽  
A. Routray ◽  
D. Preveen Kumar ◽  
John P. George ◽  
Vivek Singh

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1204-1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Schuurmans ◽  
M. F. P. Bierkens ◽  
E. J. Pebesma ◽  
R. Uijlenhoet

Abstract This study investigates the added value of operational radar with respect to rain gauges in obtaining high-resolution daily rainfall fields as required in distributed hydrological modeling. To this end data from the Netherlands operational national rain gauge network (330 gauges nationwide) is combined with an experimental network (30 gauges within 225 km2). Based on 74 selected rainfall events (March–October 2004) the spatial variability of daily rainfall is investigated at three spatial extents: small (225 km2), medium (10 000 km2), and large (82 875 km2). From this analysis it is shown that semivariograms show no clear dependence on season. Predictions of point rainfall are performed for all three extents using three different geostatistical methods: (i) ordinary kriging (OK; rain gauge data only), (ii) kriging with external drift (KED), and (iii) ordinary collocated cokriging (OCCK), with the latter two using both rain gauge data and range-corrected daily radar composites—a standard operational radar product from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The focus here is on automatic prediction. For the small extent, rain gauge data alone perform better than radar, while for larger extents with lower gauge densities, radar performs overall better than rain gauge data alone (OK). Methods using both radar and rain gauge data (KED and OCCK) prove to be more accurate than using either rain gauge data alone (OK) or radar, in particular, for larger extents. The added value of radar is positively related to the correlation between radar and rain gauge data. Using a pooled semivariogram is almost as good as using event-based semivariograms, which is convenient if the prediction is to be automated. An interesting result is that the pooled semivariograms perform better in terms of estimating the prediction error (kriging variance) especially for the small and medium extent, where the number of data points to estimate semivariograms is small and event-based semivariograms are rather unstable.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 784-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Ivković ◽  
Andrijana Todorović ◽  
Jasna Plavšić

Abstract Flood forecasting relies on good quality of observed and forecasted rainfall. In Serbia, the recording rain gauge network is sparse and rainfall data mainly come from dense non-recording rain gauges. This is not beneficial for flood forecasting in smaller catchments and short-duration events, when hydrologic models operating on subdaily scale are applied. Moreover, differences in rainfall amounts from two types of gauges can be considerable, which is common in operational hydrological practice. This paper examines the possibility of including daily rainfall data from dense observation networks in flood forecasting based on subdaily data, using the extreme flood event in the Kolubara catchment in May 2014 as a case study. Daily rainfall from a dense observation network is disaggregated to hourly scale using the MuDRain multivariate disaggregation software. The disaggregation procedure results in well-reproduced rainfall dynamics and adjusts rainfall volume to the values from the non-recording gauges. The fully distributed wflow_hbv model, which is under development as a forecasting tool for the Kolubara catchment, is used for flood simulations with two alternative hourly rainfall data. The results show an improvement when the disaggregated rainfall from denser network is used, thus indicating the significance of better representation of rainfall temporal and spatial variability for flood forecasting.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Olsson ◽  
Johanna Sörensen ◽  
Yiheng Du ◽  
Dong An ◽  
Peter Berg ◽  
...  

<p>In general terms, climate adaptation in cities is highly complicated by the very high required spatial and temporal resolution. The high resolution is needed to capture both the full variability of small-scale high-impact weather phenomena and the associated response from the mosaic of land uses and buildings in urban environments. Most commonly available climate model simulations and projections are too spatially coarse (≥10 km) for a proper assessment of many important urban climate impacts. </p><p>In terms of water-related impacts, a key issue concerns the reproduction of local short-duration rainfall extremes (cloudbursts) that may cause pluvial flooding. An accurate reproduction of the convective generation of such extremes requires a spatial resolution of at least 5 km, preferably even higher, in convection-permitting regional climate models (CPRCM). Conceivably, estimates of future changes in cloudburst characteristics and associated statistics based on CPRCM simulations will be more reliable than today’s estimates based on non-CP RCMs. Because of the extreme computational demand, however, the number of CPRCM simulations made is still rather low and generally limited to small domains and/or short time slices.</p><p>But many efforts are currently being made in this direction and the main focus of this presentation will be a case study evaluation of hourly rainfall extremes from 3×3 km² convection-permitting simulations with the HARMONIE-climate model over the Nordic region. The case study will focus on the region around the Öresund strait, that connects southern Sweden and eastern Denmark. This region contains the cities Malmö and Copenhagen that were both hit by heavy cloudburst in the last decade, that caused severe flooding and substantial damage to infrastructure.</p><p>The presentation will include different aspects of the simulations and their applicability:</p><ul><li><em>Historical performance.</em> Evaluation of reference period simulations, with both ERA-Interim and GCM boundaries, against high-resolution observations, focusing at the reproduction of short-duration (sub-daily) extremes but also e.g. diurnal cycle and spatial variability.</li> <li><em>Future changes.</em> Assessment in terms of climate factors for different durations, return periods and future time horizons. A comparison is made with climate factors estimated from lower-resolution, non-convection permitting downscalings based on the same GCM projections.</li> <li><em>End-user practices.</em> A discussion of what resolution that is needed in order to meet different stakeholders’ needs in the light of climate adaptation. The key question is how the output from CPRCM simulations can be processed and interpreted to provide an added value. </li> </ul><p>Besides the above analyses, two additional related investigations will be presented:</p><ul><li>Lessons learnt from experiments of tailored “urban downscaling” of climate projections down to 1×1 km² and 15 min over selected European urban regions (Stockholm, Bologna, Amsterdam) performed in the Urban SIS project.</li> <li>An evaluation of hourly rainfall extremes over selected European countries in a 11×11 km² EURO-CORDEX ensemble, including spatial patterns and temperature scaling of the estimated future changes.</li> </ul>


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1414-1431 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kitzmiller ◽  
Suzanne Van Cooten ◽  
Feng Ding ◽  
Kenneth Howard ◽  
Carrie Langston ◽  
...  

Abstract This study investigates evolving methodologies for radar and merged gauge–radar quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) to determine their influence on the flow predictions of a distributed hydrologic model. These methods include the National Mosaic and QPE algorithm package (NMQ), under development at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), and the Multisensor Precipitation Estimator (MPE) and High-Resolution Precipitation Estimator (HPE) suites currently operational at National Weather Service (NWS) field offices. The goal of the study is to determine which combination of algorithm features offers the greatest benefit toward operational hydrologic forecasting. These features include automated radar quality control, automated Z–R selection, brightband identification, bias correction, multiple radar data compositing, and gauge–radar merging, which all differ between NMQ and MPE–HPE. To examine the spatial and temporal characteristics of the precipitation fields produced by each of the QPE methodologies, high-resolution (4 km and hourly) gridded precipitation estimates were derived by each algorithm suite for three major precipitation events between 2003 and 2006 over subcatchments within the Tar–Pamlico River basin of North Carolina. The results indicate that the NMQ radar-only algorithm suite consistently yielded closer agreement with reference rain gauge reports than the corresponding HPE radar-only estimates did. Similarly, the NMQ radar-only QPE input generally yielded hydrologic simulations that were closer to observations at multiple stream gauging points. These findings indicate that the combination of Z–R selection and freezing-level identification algorithms within NMQ, but not incorporated within MPE and HPE, would have an appreciable positive impact on hydrologic simulations. There were relatively small differences between NMQ and HPE gauge–radar estimates in terms of accuracy and impacts on hydrologic simulations, most likely due to the large influence of the input rain gauge information.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1243-1258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yali Luo ◽  
Weimiao Qian ◽  
Renhe Zhang ◽  
Da-Lin Zhang

Abstract Heavy rainfall hit the Yangtze–Huai Rivers basin (YHRB) of east China several times during the prolonged 2007 mei-yu season, causing the worst flood since 1954. There has been an urgent need for attaining and processing high-quality, kilometer-scale, hourly rainfall data in order to understand the mei-yu precipitation processes, especially at the mesoβ and smaller scales. In this paper, the authors describe the construction of the 0.07°-resolution gridded hourly rainfall analysis over the YHRB region during the 2007 mei-yu season that is based on surface reports at 555 national and 6572 regional automated weather stations with an average resolution of about 7 km. The gridded hourly analysis is obtained using a modified Cressman-type objective analysis after applying strict quality control, including not only the commonly used internal temporal and spatial consistency and extreme value checks, but also verifications against mosaic radar reflectivity data. This analysis reveals many convectively generated finescale precipitation structures that could not be seen from the national station reports. A comprehensive quantitative assessment ensures the quality of the gridded hourly precipitation data. A comparison of this dataset with the U.S. Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH) dataset on the same resolution suggests the dependence of the latter's performance on different rainfall intensity categories, with substantial underestimation of the magnitude and width of the mei-yu rainband as well as the nocturnal and morning peak rainfall amounts, due mainly to its underestimating the occurrences of heavy rainfall (i.e., >10 mm h−1).


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 3135-3156
Author(s):  
Rossella Ferretti ◽  
Annalina Lombardi ◽  
Barbara Tomassetti ◽  
Lorenzo Sangelantoni ◽  
Valentina Colaiuda ◽  
...  

Abstract. The weather forecasts for precipitation have considerably improved in recent years thanks to the increase of computational power. This allows for the use of both a higher spatial resolution and the parameterization schemes specifically developed for representing sub-grid scale physical processes at high resolution. However, precipitation estimation is still affected by errors that can impact the response of hydrological models. To the aim of improving the hydrological forecast and the characterization of related uncertainties, a regional-scale meteorological–hydrological ensemble is presented. The uncertainties in the precipitation forecast and how they propagate in the hydrological model are also investigated. A meteorological–hydrological offline coupled ensemble is built to forecast events in a complex-orography terrain where catchments of different sizes are present. The Best Discharge-based Drainage (BDD; both deterministic and probabilistic) index, is defined with the aim of forecasting hydrological-stress conditions and related uncertainty. In this context, the meteorological–hydrological ensemble forecast is implemented and tested for a severe hydrological event which occurred over Central Italy on 15 November 2017, when a flood hit the Abruzzo region with precipitation reaching 200 mm (24 h)−1 and producing damages with a high impact on social and economic activities. The newly developed meteorological–hydrological ensemble is compared with a high-resolution deterministic forecast and with the observations (rain gauges and radar data) over the same area. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) statistical indicator shows how skilful the ensemble precipitation forecast is with respect to both rain-gauge- and radar-retrieved precipitation. Moreover, both the deterministic and probabilistic configurations of the BDD index are compared with the alert map issued by Civil Protection Department for the event showing a very good agreement. Finally, the meteorological–hydrological ensemble allows for an estimation of both the predictability of the event a few days in advance and the uncertainty of the flood. Although the modelling framework is implemented on the basins of the Abruzzo region, it is portable and applicable to other areas.


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