About this visualization
This map shows a very high resolution (0.05°) precipitation climatology built from the radars aboard NASA's Precipitation Measurement Missions — the TRMM Precipitation Radar (Ku-band, 1997–2014) and the GPM Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR, Ku band, 2014–present). Every observed radar pixel is gridded directly from the orbital swaths, so the views denominator counts all sampling and the precipitation fields are consistent with it.
Source: the near-surface precipitation rate
(precipRateNearSurface) from GPM 2A-DPR Ku (V07) and the
GPM-reprocessed TRMM PR 2A, GPM_2APR (V07).
The goal is to resolve precipitation structure — related to islands, topography, land, lake and river cover, sea surface temperatures, land and sea breezes — from the most accurate tool we have from space, precipitation radar.
Sensitivity caveat — TRMM vs GPM
TRMM's Precipitation Radar has a minimum detectable reflectivity of ~17–18 dBZ, whereas GPM's Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) is more sensitive (~12 dBZ) and therefore detects substantially more light precipitation that TRMM misses. This difference can introduce discontinuities between the TRMM (1997–2015) and GPM (2014–present) records — and within the COMBINED member — that are most pronounced in regions and seasons where light rain is prevalent. Interpret cross-mission comparisons with this sensitivity gap in mind.
Key references — 0.05° (or finer) precipitation-radar climatology
- Nesbitt, S. W., and A. M. Anders (2009), Very high resolution precipitation climatologies from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission precipitation radar, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L15815, doi:10.1029/2009GL038026.
- Hirose, M., and K. Nakamura (2005), Spatial and diurnal variation of precipitation systems over Asia observed by the TRMM Precipitation Radar, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D05106, doi:10.1029/2004JD004815.
- Biasutti, M., S. E. Yuter, C. D. Burleyson, and A. H. Sobel (2012), Very high resolution rainfall patterns measured by TRMM precipitation radar: seasonal and diurnal cycles, Clim. Dyn., 39, 239–258, doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1146-6.
- Bookhagen, B., and D. W. Burbank (2006), Topography, relief, and TRMM-derived rainfall variations along the Himalaya, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L08405, doi:10.1029/2006GL026037.
- Anders, A. M., and S. W. Nesbitt (2015), Altitudinal precipitation gradients in the tropics from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar, J. Hydrometeorol., 16, 441–448, doi:10.1175/JHM-D-14-0178.1.
- Kidd, C., J. Kwiatkowski, and S. W. Nesbitt (2010), Investigations into high resolution mapping of precipitation features utilizing the TRMM precipitation radar, IGARSS 2010 (IEEE Int. Geosci. Remote Sens. Symp.), 2337–2340, doi:10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5649629.
Data & citation
- Underlying gridded dataset (0.05° Zarr): huggingface.co/datasets/snesbitt/pf-grid-tiles.
- Cite this atlas —
Tiles rendered on the fly with xpublish-tiles; ChaseSpectral colormap from cmweather. © University of Illinois Board of Trustees · Contact Steve Nesbitt.
This work was supported by projects from the NASA Precipitation Measurement Missions and Weather programs to the University of Illinois.