Creation of TRMM PR data by minimizing the effect of the PR hardware change

Precipitation observation by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission’ s (TRMM’ s) Precipitation Radar (PR) has lasted for almost 17 years. On February 28, 2014, the core satellite of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission was launched, and the GPM Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) started providing precipitation data succeeding the TRMM PR observation. PR and DPR not only estimate precipitation accurately both over land and the oceans but also provide information to derive precipitation characteristics (e.g., rain top height and rain vertical profile). Homogeneity of long-term PR/DPR data will be essential to study the water cycle change related to the decadal climate variability. In this study, we aim to develop a precipitation climate data from 17-year PR data. The PR data have discontinuities in quality due to the boost of the TRMM satellite altitude in August 2001 and the PR hardware (H/W) change in June 2009. In this paper, PR data are adjusted to mitigate the discontinuity of the PR H/W change.