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Comparison of high-resolution TRMM-based precipitation products during tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean

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Abstract

In order to evaluate the performance of satellite-retrieved precipitation estimation during cyclonic events, qualitative and quantitative evaluation of surface rain rate from three different data products namely TMI-2A12, TMPA-3B42, and GSMaP are carried out with respect to PR-2A25 data product. For this purpose, four recent tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean (NIO) during 2009–2010 are considered. Some aspects of the associated environmental wind fields are also investigated for their relationship with the tropical rainfall intensity in the individual cases. The relatively small root-mean-square error (RMSE) of TMPA-3B42 product shows better performance than the other two precipitation products during low to moderate rainfall regimes. But, the negative bias associated with all the three precipitation products show underestimation of rain rates with respect to PR derived rain rates. Furthermore, the GSMaP precipitation product shows better compliance than the TMPA-3B42 product with PR rain rate under extreme (more than 10 mm h−1) rain events. The lack of information regarding the associated uncertainties and reliability of these precipitation products suggest that substantial efforts are necessary to develop algorithms that can capture such extreme precipitation events more reliably.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Director, Space Applications Center and the Deputy Director, EPSA for encouragement and their interest for the research carried out in present study. They also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript significantly. The GSMaP data from JAXA, the TRMM data used in this study were acquired as part of the NASA’s Earth-Sun System Division and archived and distributed by the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC), and NCEP Reanalysis data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ are thankfully acknowledged.

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  1. Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Group, GRD/AOSG/EPSA, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, 380 015, India

    Satya Prakash, C. Mahesh, R. M. Gairola & P. K. Pal

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  1. Satya Prakash
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  2. C. Mahesh
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  3. R. M. Gairola
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  4. P. K. Pal
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Correspondence to Satya Prakash.

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Prakash, S., Mahesh, C., Gairola, R.M. et al. Comparison of high-resolution TRMM-based precipitation products during tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. Nat Hazards 61, 689–701 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-011-0055-7

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