Precipitation Climate Data Records

Abstract:

Five precipitation CDRs are now or soon will be transitioned to NOAA’s CDR program. These include the PERSIANN data set, which is a 30-year record of daily adjusted global precipitation based on retrievals from satellite microwave data using artificial neural networks. The AMSU-A/B/Hydrobundle is an 11-year record of precipitable water, cloud water, ice water, and other variables. CMORPH (the NOAA Climate Prediction Center Morphing Technique) is a 17-year record of daily and sub-daily adjusted global precipitation measured from passive microwave and infrared data at high spatial and temporal resolution. GPCP (the Global Precipitation Climatology Project) is an approximately 30-year record of monthly and pentad adjusted global precipitation and a 17-year record of daily adjusted global precipitation. The NEXRAD Reanalysis is a 10-year record of high resolution NEXRAD radar based adjusted CONUS-wide hourly and daily precipitation.

This study provides an assessment of the existing and transitioned long term precipitation CDRs and includes the verification of the five precipitation CDRs using various methods including comparison with in-situ data sets and trend analysis. As all of the precipitation related CDRs are transitioned, long term analyses can be performed. Comparisons at varying scales (hourly, daily and longer) of the precipitation CDRs with in-situ data sets are provided as well as a first look at what could be an ensemble long term precipitation data record.