Variability of Indian summer monsoon rainfall in daily data from gauge and satellite

Rahman, SH and Sengupta, Debasis and Ravichandran, M (2009) Variability of Indian summer monsoon rainfall in daily data from gauge and satellite. In: Journal of Geopysical Research Atmospheres, 114 . D17113-1.

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Abstract

It has long been thought that tropical rainfall retrievals from satellites have large errors. Here we show, using a new daily 1 degree gridded rainfall data set based on about 1800 gauges from the India Meteorology Department (IMD), that modern satellite estimates are reasonably close to observed rainfall over the Indian monsoon region. Daily satellite rainfalls from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP 1DD) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) are available since 1998. The high summer monsoon (June-September) rain over the Western Ghats and Himalayan foothills is captured in TMPA data. Away from hilly regions, the seasonal mean and intraseasonal variability of rainfall (averaged over regions of a few hundred kilometers linear dimension) from both satellite products are about 15% of observations. Satellite data generally underestimate both the mean and variability of rain, but the phase of intraseasonal variations is accurate. On synoptic timescales, TMPA gives reasonable depiction of the pattern and intensity of torrential rain from individual monsoon low-pressure systems and depressions. A pronounced biennial oscillation of seasonal total central India rain is seen in all three data sets, with GPCP 1DD being closest to IMD observations. The new satellite data are a promising resource for the study of tropical rainfall variability.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Geopysical Research Atmospheres
Publisher:	American Geophysical Union
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to American Geophysical Union, 2009
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited:	06 Jan 2010 10:49
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 05:49
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/24218

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