This proposal is to support the ongoing involvement of the PI with the AMSR-E science team through the continued generation and support of the AMSR-E Level 2 rainfall algorithm. The proposal consists of three parts. (1) The implementation and documentation of a major algorithm improvement that is expected from a proposal submitted separately under the Precipitation NRA to encompass TMI, SSM/I and AMSR-E. This effort includes operational support of the currently implemented algorithm and its documentation. (2) The continued validation of current and future versions of the algorithm. This includes comparisons of AMSR-E rainfall products at high latitudes with radar data from Eureka, CA, Middleton Island off the coast of Alaska as well as TRMM and CloudSat, which has been successfully launched. (3) Additional efforts designed to ensure that rainfall products derived from AMSR-E are physically consistent with other facility products derived from the same platform. Cloud water, specifically, is derived by a separate algorithm developed as part of the ocean suite. Because different PIs are involved, there is currently no requirement that cloud liquid water and rainfall be consistent across the rain threshold. This study will focus on the problems associated with detecting the onset of precipitation and work with the AMSR-E team to implement any finding in a consistent way across the facility cloud water and precipitation products.
