Evaluating several satellite precipitation estimates and global ground-based dataset on Sicily (Italy)

The developing of satellite-based precipitation retrieval systems, presents great potentialities for several applications ranging from weather and meteorological applications to hydrological modelling. Evaluating performances for these estimates is essential in order to understand their real capabilities and suitability related to each application. In this study an evaluation analysis of satellite precipitation retrieval systems has been carried out for the area of Sicily (Italy). Sicily is an island in the Mediterranean sea with a particular climatology and morphology, which is considered as an interesting test site for satellite precipitation products on the European mid-latitude area. A high density rain-gauges network has been used to evaluate selected satellite precipitation products. Sicily has an area of 26,000 km2 and the gauge density of the network considered in this study is about 250 km2/gauge. Four satellite products (CMORPH, PERSIANN, TMPA-RT, PERSIANN-CCS) along with two adjusted products (TMPA and PERSIANN Adjusted) have been selected for the evaluation. Evaluation and comparisons among selected products is performed with reference to the data provided by the gauge network of Sicily and using statistical and visualization tools. Results show that bias is relevant for all satellite products and climatic considerations are reported to address this issue. Moreover bias errors are observed for the adjusted products even though they are reduced respect to only-satellite products. In order to analyze this result, the ground-based precipitation dataset used by adjusted products (GPCC dataset), has been examined and weaknesses arising from spatial sampling of precipitation process have been identified for the study area. Therefore possible issues deriving from using global ground-based datasets for local scales are pointed out from this application. © 2012 SPIE

Evaluation of Satellite-Based Rainfall Estimates in the Lower Mekong River Basin (Southeast Asia)

Satellite-based precipitation is an essential tool for regional water resource applications that requires frequent observations of meteorological forcing, particularly in areas that have sparse rain gauge networks. To fully realize the utility of remotely sensed precipitation products in watershed modeling and decision-making, a thorough evaluation of the accuracy of satellite-based rainfall and regional gauge network estimates is needed. In this study, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42 v.7 and Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) daily rainfall estimates were compared with daily rain gauge observations from 2000 to 2014 in the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMRB) in Southeast Asia. Monthly, seasonal, and annual comparisons were performed, which included the calculations of correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination, bias, root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE). Our validation test showed TMPA to correctly detect precipitation or no-precipitation 64.9% of all days and CHIRPS 66.8% of all days, compared to daily in-situ rainfall measurements. The accuracy of the satellite-based products varied greatly between the wet and dry seasons. Both TMPA and CHIRPS showed higher correlation with in-situ data during the wet season (JuneSeptember) as compared to the dry season (NovemberJanuary). Additionally, both performed better on a monthly than an annual time-scale when compared to in-situ data. The satellite-based products showed wet biases during months that received higher cumulative precipitation. Based on a spatial correlation analysis, the average r-value of CHIRPS was much higher than TMPA across the basin. CHIRPS correlated better than TMPA at lower elevations and for monthly rainfall accumulation less than 500 mm. While both satellite-based products performed well, as compared to rain gauge measurements, the present research shows that CHIRPS might be better at representing precipitation over the LMRB than TMPA

Hydrologic evaluation of satellite precipitation products over a mid-size basin

Since the past three decades a great deal of effort is devoted to development of satellite-based precipitation retrieval algorithms. More recently, several satellite-based precipitation products have emerged that provide uninterrupted precipitation time series with quasi-global coverage. These satellite-based precipitation products provide an unprecedented opportunity for hydrometeorological applications and climate studies. Although growing, the application of satellite data for hydrological applications is still very limited. In this study, the effectiveness of using satellite-based precipitation products for streamflow simulation at catchment scale is evaluated. Five satellite-based precipitation products (TMPA-RT, TMPA-V6, CMORPH, PERSIANN, and PERSIANN-adj) are used as forcing data for streamflow simulations at 6-h and monthly time scales during the period of 2003-2008. SACramento Soil Moisture Accounting (SAC-SMA) model is used for streamflow simulation over the mid-size Illinois River basin.The results show that by employing the satellite-based precipitation forcing the general streamflow pattern is well captured at both 6-h and monthly time scales. However, satellites products, with no bias-adjustment being employed, significantly overestimate both precipitation inputs and simulated streamflows over warm months (spring and summer months). For cold season, on the other hand, the unadjusted precipitation products result in under-estimation of streamflow forecast. It was found that bias-adjustment of precipitation is critical and can yield to substantial improvement in capturing both streamflow pattern and magnitude. The results suggest that along with efforts to improve satellite-based precipitation estimation techniques, it is important to develop more effective near real-time precipitation bias adjustment techniques for hydrologic applications. © 2010 Elsevier B.V

Evaluation and comparison of satellite precipitation estimates with reference to a local area in the Mediterranean Sea

Precipitation is one of the major variables for many applications and disciplines related to water resources and the geophysical Earth system. Satellite retrieval systems, rain-gauge networks, and radar systems are complementary to each other in terms of their coverage and capability of monitoring precipitation. Satellite-rainfall estimate systems produce data with global coverage that can provide information in areas for which data from other sources are unavailable. Without referring to ground measurements, satellite-based estimates can be biased and, although some gauge-adjusted satellite-precipitation products have been already developed, an effective way of integrating multi-sources of precipitation information is still a challenge.In this study, a specific area, the Sicilia Island (Italy), has been selected for the evaluation of satellite-precipitation products based on rain-gauge data. This island is located in the Mediterranean Sea, with a particular climatology and morphology, which can be considered an interesting test site for satellite-precipitation products in the European mid-latitude area. Four satellite products (CMORPH, PERSIANN, PERSIANN-CCS, and TMPA-RT) and two GPCP-adjusted products (TMPA and PERSIANN Adjusted) have been selected. Evaluation and comparison of selected products is performed with reference to data provided by the rain-gauge network of the Island Sicilia and by using statistical and graphical tools. Particular attention is paid to bias issues shown both by only-satellite and adjusted products. In order to investigate the current and potential possibilities of improving estimates by means of adjustment procedures using GPCC ground precipitation, the data have been retrieved separately and compared directly with the reference rain-gauge network data set of the study area.Results show that bias is still considerable for all satellite products, then some considerations about larger area climatology, PMW-retrieval algorithms, and GPCC data are discussed to address this issue, along with the spatial and seasonal characterization of results. © 2013 Elsevier B.V

Multiregional Satellite Precipitation Products Evaluation over Complex Terrain

An extensive evaluation of nine global-scale high-resolution satellite-based rainfall (SBR) products is performed using a minimum of 6 years (within the period of 2000-13) of reference rainfall data derived from rain gauge networks in nine mountainous regions across the globe. The SBR products are compared to a recently released global reanalysis dataset from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The study areas include the eastern Italian Alps, the Swiss Alps, the western Black Sea of Turkey, the French Cévennes, the Peruvian Andes, the Colombian Andes, the Himalayas over Nepal, the Blue Nile in East Africa, Taiwan, and the U.S. Rocky Mountains. Evaluation is performed at annual, monthly, and daily time scales and 0.25° spatial resolution. The SBR datasets are based on the following retrieval algorithms: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), the NOAA/Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH), Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN), and Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP). SBR products are categorized into those that include gauge adjustment versus unadjusted. Results show that performance of SBR is highly dependent on the rainfall variability. Many SBR products usually underestimate wet season and overestimate dry season precipitation. The performance of gauge adjustment to the SBR products varies by region and depends greatly on the representativeness of the rain gauge network

MSWEP : 3-hourly 0.25° global gridded precipitation (1979-2015) by merging gauge, satellite, and reanalysis data

Current global precipitation (P) datasets do not take full advantage of the complementary nature of satellite and reanalysis data. Here, we present Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) version 1.1, a global P dataset for the period 1979-2015 with a 3hourly temporal and 0.25 degrees ffi spatial resolution, specifically designed for hydrological modeling. The design philosophy of MSWEP was to optimally merge the highest quality P data sources available as a function of timescale and location. The long-term mean of MSWEP was based on the CHPclim dataset but replaced with more accurate regional datasets where available. A correction for gauge under-catch and orographic effects was introduced by inferring catchment-average P from streamflow (Q) observations at 13 762 stations across the globe. The temporal variability of MSWEP was determined by weighted averaging of P anomalies from seven datasets; two based solely on interpolation of gauge observations (CPC Unified and GPCC), three on satellite remote sensing (CMORPH, GSMaP-MVK, and TMPA 3B42RT), and two on atmospheric model reanalysis (ERA-Interim and JRA-55). For each grid cell, the weight assigned to the gauge-based estimates was calculated from the gauge network density, while the weights assigned to the satellite-and reanalysis-based estimates were calculated from their comparative performance at the surrounding gauges. The quality of MSWEP was compared against four state-of-the-art gauge-adjusted P datasets (WFDEI-CRU, GPCP-1DD, TMPA 3B42, and CPC Unified) using independent P data from 125 FLUXNET tower stations around the globe. MSWEP obtained the highest daily correlation coefficient (R) among the five P datasets for 60.0% of the stations and a median R of 0.67 vs. 0.44-0.59 for the other datasets. We further evaluated the performance of MSWEP using hydrological modeling for 9011 catchments (< 50 000 km(2)) across the globe. Specifically, we calibrated the simple conceptual hydrological model HBV (Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning) against daily Q observations with P from each of the different datasets. For the 1058 sparsely gauged catchments, representative of 83.9% of the global land surface (excluding Antarctica), MSWEP obtained a median calibration NSE of 0.52 vs. 0.29-0.39 for the other P datasets. MSWEP is available via http://www.gloh2o.org

Hydrological Modeling of the Peruvian-Ecuadorian Amazon Basin Using GPM-IMERG Satellite-Based Precipitation Dataset

In the last two decades, rainfall estimates provided by the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) have proven applicable in hydrological studies. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, which provides the new generation of rainfall estimates, is now considered a global successor to TRMM. The usefulness of GPM data in hydrological applications, however, has not yet been evaluated over the Andean and Amazonian regions. This study uses GPM data provided by the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals (IMERG) (productfinal run) as input to a distributed hydrological model for the Amazon Basin of Peru and Ecuador for a 16-month period (from March 2014 to June 2015) when all datasets are available. TRMM products (TMPA V7, TMPA RT datasets) and a gridded precipitation dataset processed from observed rainfall are used for comparison. The results indicate that precipitation data derived from GPM-IMERG correspond more closely to TMPA V7 than TMPA RT datasets, but both GPM-IMERG and TMPA V7 precipitation data tend to overestimate, compared to observed rainfall (by 11.1 and 15.7 , respectively). In general, GPM-IMERG, TMPA V7 and TMPA RT correlate with observed rainfall, with a similar number of rain events correctly detected (20). Statistical analysis of modeled streamflows indicates that GPM-IMERG is as useful as TMPA V7 or TMPA RT datasets in southern regions (Ucayali basin). GPM-IMERG, TMPA V7 and TMPA RT do not properly simulate streamflows in northern regions (Maran and Napo basins), probably because of the lack of adequate rainfall estimates in northern Peru and the Ecuadorian Amazon

An infrared spectroscopy study of the conformational evolution of the Bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ion in the liquid and in the glass state

We measure the far-infrared spectrum of N,N-Dimethyl-N-ethyl-N-benzylammonium (DEBA) bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl) imide (TFSI) ionic liquid (IL) in the temperature range between 160 and 307 K. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements indicate that such IL undergoes a glass transition around 210K. DFT calculations allow us to assign all the experimental absorptions to specific vibrations of the DEBA cation or of the two conformers of the TFSI anion. We find that the vibration frequencies calculated by means of the PBE0 functional are in better agreement with the experimental ones than those calculated at the B3LYP level, largely used for the attribution of vibration lines of ionic liquids. Experimentally we show that, in the liquid state, the relative concentrations of the two conformers of TFSI depend on temperature through the Boltzmann factor and the energy separation, ΔH, is found to be ≈2 kJ/mol, in agreement with previous calculations and literature. However, in the glassy state, the concentrations of the cis-TFSI and trans-TFSI remain fixed, witnessing the frozen state of this phase

Bayesian Analysis of the Impact of Rainfall Data Product on Simulated Slope Failure for North Carolina Locations

In the past decades, many different approaches have been developed in the literature to quantify the load-carrying capacity and geotechnical stability (or the factor of safety, Fs) of variably saturated hillslopes. Much of this work has focused on a deterministic characterization of hillslope stability. Yet, simulated Fs values are subject to considerable uncertainty due to our inability to characterize accurately the soil mantles properties (hydraulic, geotechnical, and geomorphologic) and spatiotemporal variability of the moisture content of the hillslope interior. This is particularly true at larger spatial scales. Thus, uncertainty-incorporating analyses of physically based models of rain-induced landslides are rare in the literature. Such landslide modeling is typically conducted at the hillslope scale using gauge-based rainfall forcing data with rather poor spatiotemporal coverage. For regional landslide modeling, the specific advantages and/or disadvantages of gauge-only, radar-merged and satellite-based rainfall products are not clearly established. Here, we compare and evaluate the performance of the Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-based Regional Slope-stability analysis (TRIGRS) model for three different rainfall products using 112 observed landslides in the period between 2004 and 2011 from the North Carolina Geological Survey database. Our study includes the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis Version 7 (TMPA V7), the North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2 (NLDAS-2) analysis, and the reference truth Stage IV precipitation. TRIGRS model performance was rather inferior with the use of literature values of the geotechnical parameters and soil hydraulic properties from ROSETTA using soil textural and bulk density data from SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic database). The performance of TRIGRS improved considerably after Bayesian estimation of the parameters with the DiffeRential Evolution Adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) algorithm using Stage IV precipitation data. Hereto, we use a likelihood function that combines binary slope failure information from landslide event and null periods using multivariate frequency distribution-based metrics such as the false discovery and false omission rates. Our results demonstrate that the Stage IV-inferred TRIGRS parameter distributions generalize well to TMPA and NLDAS-2 precipitation data, particularly at sites with considerably larger TMPA and NLDAS-2 rainfall amounts during landslide events than null periods. TRIGRS model performance is then rather similar for all three rainfall products. At higher elevations, however, the TMPA and NLDAS-2 precipitation volumes are insufficient and their performance with the Stage IV-derived parameter distributions indicates their inability to accurately characterize hillslope stability