Evaluation of Latest TMPA and CMORPH Precipitation Products with Independent Rain Gauge Observation Networks over High-latitude and Low-latitude Basins in China

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission （TRMM） Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis （TMPA） and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration （NOAA） Climate Prediction Center （CPC） morphing technique （CMORPH） are two important multi-satellite precipitation products in TRMM-era and perform important functions in GPM-era. Both TMPA and CMORPH systems simultaneously upgraded their retrieval algorithms and released their latest version of precipitation data in 2013. In this study, the latest TMPA and CMORPH products （i.e., Version-7 real-time TMPA （T-rt） and gauge-adjusted TMPA （T-adj）, and Version- 1.0 real-time CMORPH （C-rt） and Version-l.0 gauge-adjusted CMORPH （C-adj）） are evaluated and intercompared by using independent rain gauge observations for a 12-year （2000--2011） period over two typical basins in China with different geographical and climate conditions. Results indicate that all TMPA and CMORPH products tend to overestimate precipitation for the high-latitude semiarid Laoha River Basin and underestimate it for the low-latitude humid Mishui Basin. Overall, the satellite precipitation products exhibit superior performance over Mishui Basin than that over Laoha River Basin. The C-adj presents the best performance over the high-latitude Laoha River Basin, whereas T-adj showed the best performance over the low-latitude Mishui Basin. The two gauge-adjusted products demonstrate potential in water resource management. However, the accuracy of two real-time satellite precipitation products demonstrates large variability in the two validation basins. The C-rt reaches a similar accuracy level with the gauge-adjusted satellite precipitation products in the high-latitude Laoha River Basin, and T-rt performs well in the low-latitude Mishui Basin. The study also reveals that all satellite precipitation products obviously overestimate light rain amounts and events over Laoha River Basin, whereas they underestimate the amount and events over Mishui Basin. The findings of the precision characteristics associated with the latest TMPA and CMORPH precipitation products at different basins will offer satellite pre- cipitation users an enhanced understanding of the applicability of the latest TMPA and CMORPH for water resource management, hydrologic process simulation, and hydrometeorological disaster prediction in other similar regions in China. The findings will also be useful for IMERG algorithm development and update in GPM-era.

中国大陆TMPA降水产品气候态的评估

利用逐日全国降水分析产品,对2012年12月下旬发布的最新版本的TRMM等多源卫星降水估算产品(TMPA)进行评估,评估时间从2008年9月到2012年8月。从评估结果来看,研究产品3B42V7产品与CPAP产品具有高的相关性,两者的相关系数达到了0.94,相对误差在—0.11%左右,标准偏差约为0.53 mm·d^(-1)。实时产品3B42RT产品与CPAP产品的相关性相对较差,相关系数为0.75,相对误差也上升到了39.3%,标准偏差为1.25 mm·d^(-1)。3B42RT产品在我国西部高估了降水,全年的相对误差为116.60%(春夏秋冬四季分别为104.52%、105.73%、117.64%和326.60%);3B42V7产品的相对误差仅为0.82%(春夏秋冬四季分别为2.25%、1.24%、—5.27%和—24.64%)。