This proposed effort will continue research using the TRMM data suite to study detailed characteristics of tropical precipitation. In addition to this scientific research, we will also continue work to develop the framework for an extensive, unprecedented ground validation program for the coming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission, which requires understanding of tropical, mid-, and high-latitude precipitation processes. To date we have used TRMM data to describe the characteristics of tropical precipitation in terms of convective and stratiform rain contributions and how these components relate to ice scattering parameters, how these parameters vary over land and ocean, and as a function of size of the Precipitation Feature (PF). We have also analyzed NASA TRMM field campaign data to provide a detailed look at tropical convection in various land and ocean locations. These field data have also been valuable for improving explicit numerical models of convection.
In the proposed research, we will continue to interleave TRMM data, field campaign, and model data towards further validating the numerical models. We will develop a more formal, statistically based methodology for comparing model and observational data. We will also continue research using the extensive PF database from TRMM to study climatic variability of tropical convection and identify improvements to the retrieval algorithms needed to account for this variability. Lastly we will develop a framework for comparing satellite and surface-based measurements of precipitation that is expected to lay the foundation for GPM Ground Validation, paying particular attention to identifying the various sources of errors in the surface based measurements themselves in order to routinely and objectively constrain satellite algorithm retrievals.
