An overview of the precipitation retrieval algorithm for the dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) on the global precipitation measurement (GPM) mission's core satellite

This paper describes the planned level 2 algorithm that retrieves precipitation profiles from data to be obtained by the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) on the core satellite of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The general idea behind the algorithms is to determine general characteristics of the precipitation, correct for attenuation and estimate profiles of the precipitation water content, rainfall rate and, when dual-wavelength data are available, information on the particle size distributions in rain and snow. It is particularly important that dual-wavelength data will provide better estimates of rainfall and snowfall rates than the TRMM PR data by using the particle size information and the capability of estimating the height at which the precipitation transitions from solid to liquid.