GPM SSMIS Radiometer Precipitation Profiles at 12 km Resolution

GPM_2AGPROFF16SSMIS is a Level 2 satellite dataset from NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission. The data provides precipitation profiles and related atmospheric fields retrieved from SSMIS radiometer observations using the GPROF Bayesian algorithm. Version 07 is the current and definitive version, superseding all previous releases.

Use Cases

• Modeling global precipitation distribution based on the large sampling provided by the satellite constellation.
• Analyzing vertical cloud and precipitation hydrometeor structure based on retrieved profile data.
• Studying atmospheric water vapor and precipitation uncertainty based on the Bayesian retrieval method.
• Creating consistent long-term climate records based on the use of ECMWF reanalysis in the climate product.

Strengths

• Provides consistent precipitation retrieval across multiple satellite sensors in the GPM constellation.
• Offers near-real-time, standard, and climate products with different ancillary data for various use cases.
• Algorithm is parametric and well-suited for a constellation approach, using a common a-priori database.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the DMSP F16 SSMIS sensor, processed with the Goddard Profiling (GPROF) algorithm.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is implied to be continuous, with data available within 3 hours (NRT), 48 hours (standard), and 3 months (climate) of collection.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:55:16.187842; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage, likely corresponding to the orbital swath of the GPM constellation satellites.