NASA GPM Project: Global Precipitation Measurements from Microwave Sensors

Version 07 is the current climate-referenced data product from NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The dataset provides consistent precipitation retrievals from a constellation of microwave sensors, including GMI, TMI, SSMI/S, AMSR2, MHS, ATMS, and SAPHIR, using a Bayesian algorithm. It includes near-realtime, standard, and climate products, with the climate products using ECMWF reanalysis for homogeneous long-term records.

Use Cases

• Analyzing global 3-hour precipitation coverage based on the multi-sensor constellation approach described.
• Developing climate-referenced precipitation time series based on the use of homogeneous ECMWF reanalysis ancillary data.
• Studying the vertical structure of cloud and precipitation hydrometeors based on the Bayesian retrieval algorithm's output.
• Comparing precipitation retrievals across different passive microwave sensors based on the intercalibrated brightness temperatures.

Strengths

• Provides a large sampling of global precipitation with 3-hour coverage from a multi-sensor constellation.
• Offers climate-referenced products (CLIM) using homogeneous ECMWF reanalysis data for consistent long-term records.
• Uses a parametric Bayesian algorithm (GPROF) with a common a-priori database for consistent retrievals across sensors.

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.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) project.

Collection Method

Retrievals from passive microwave satellite sensors using the GPROF Bayesian algorithm.

Time Range

Climate time series, but specific start and end dates are not provided.

Freshness

Version 07 is noted as the current version, superseding older versions.

Geography

Global coverage.