TROPICS03: Instantaneous Surface Rain Rate from Satellite Constellation

TROPICS03 satellite data provides geophysical retrievals of atmospheric temperature, moisture, and precipitation. The dataset contains granules with 81 spots and approximately 2880 scans per orbit, produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling tropical cyclone intensity based on high-temporal-resolution precipitation structure observations.
• Analyzing three-dimensional temperature and humidity profiles for storm investigation.
• Studying cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure using microwave spectrometer data.
• Retrieving total precipitable water measurements at fine spatial resolution.

Strengths

• Data is from a dedicated constellation of five satellites designed for high-temporal-resolution observations.
• Each data granule contains measurements from 81 spots and approximately 2880 scans.
• The spectrometer payload provides channels sensitive to temperature, water vapor, precipitation, and cloud ice.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite observations from the TROPICS03 spacecraft's passive microwave spectrometer.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 20:37:12.446478; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely focuses on tropical regions where cyclones form.