Precipitation estimation with satellites and radar

Abstract Radar and satellite measurements were simultaneously used for the detailed description of the properties of precipitating clouds. Existing raindrops were detected by digitised data of an MRL-5 radar measuring at 3 and 10 cms. This information was merged with the physical characteristics of precipitating clouds retrieved from the radiance data of the operational meteorological satellites. First, we used infrared and visible METEOSAT data for cloud classification and for a qualitative estimation of precipitation. Second, from the multispectral measurements of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the polar orbiting NOAA satellites we explicitly derived cloud-top temperature, optical thickness and effective cloud droplet size. We also determined a cloud flag using a thresholding technique. The radar and satellite images were transformed into the same geographic projection format and displayed simultaneously for qualitative evaluation. Empirical relationships were established between coincident ground precipitation measurements, radar data and satellite cloud parameters. The effect of the additional information provided by AVHRR on the quality of the precipitation estimates was evaluated.

[1]  Garik Gutman,et al.  Retrieving microphysical properties near the tops of potential rain clouds by multispectral analysis of AVHRR data , 1994 .

[2]  A. Slingo,et al.  Sensitivity of the Earth's radiation budget to changes in low clouds , 1990, Nature.

[3]  M. Cheng,et al.  Delineation of Precipitation Areas by Correlation of Meteosat Visible and Infrared Data with Radar Data , 1995 .

[4]  U. Schneider,et al.  Global precipitation estimates based on a technique for combining satellite-based estimates, rain gauge analysis, and NWP model precipitation information , 1995 .

[5]  K. Stamnes,et al.  Numerically stable algorithm for discrete-ordinate-method radiative transfer in multiple scattering and emitting layered media. , 1988, Applied optics.

[6]  Shaun Lovejoy,et al.  The delineation of rain areas from visible and IR satellite data for GATE and mid‐latitudes , 1979 .

[7]  C. Kidd,et al.  A new instrument with rainfall monitoring potential , 1988 .

[8]  M. Diószeghy,et al.  Cloud classification derived from Meteosat data involving the standard deviation fields of the brightness values , 1995 .

[9]  Images in weather forecasting , 1997 .

[10]  Roland T. Chin,et al.  Determination of Rainfall Rates from GOES Satellite Images by a Pattern Recognition Technique , 1985 .

[11]  W. Wiscombe,et al.  Mie Scattering Calculations: Advances in Technique and Fast, Vector-speed Computer Codes , 1979 .

[12]  T. Nakajima,et al.  Wide-Area Determination of Cloud Microphysical Properties from NOAA AVHRR Measurements for FIRE and ASTEX Regions , 1995 .