Article Type:
Research Article

Introducing and Evaluating the Climate Hazards Center IMERG with Stations (CHIMES): Timely Station-Enhanced Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement

Chris C. Funk Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Pete Peterson Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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George J. Huffman NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland;

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Martin Francis Landsfeld Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Christa Peters-Lidard NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland;

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Frank Davenport Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Shraddhanand Shukla Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Seth Peterson Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Diego H. Pedreros U.S. Geological Survey, Baltimore, Maryland;

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Alex C. Ruane NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York;

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Carolyn Mutter NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Center for Climate Systems Research, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York

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Will Turner Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Laura Harrison Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Austin Sonnier Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Juliet Way-Henthorne Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Gregory J. Husak Climate Hazards Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California;

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Online Publication:
16 Feb 2022
Print Publication:
01 Feb 2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0245.1
Page(s):
E429–E454
Restricted access

Abstract

As human exposure to hydroclimatic extremes increase and the number of in situ precipitation observations declines, precipitation estimates, such as those provided by the Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) (IMERG) mission, provide a critical source of information. Here, we present a new gauge-enhanced dataset [the Climate Hazards Center IMERG with Stations (CHIMES)] designed to support global crop and hydrologic modeling and monitoring. CHIMES enhances the IMERG Late Run product using an updated Climate Hazards Center (CHC) high-resolution climatology (CHPclim) and low-latency rain gauge observations. CHPclim differs from other products because it incorporates long-term averages of satellite precipitation, which increases CHPclim’s fidelity in data-sparse areas with complex terrain. This fidelity translates into performance increases in unbiased IMERGlate data, which we refer to as CHIME. This is augmented with gauge observations to produce CHIMES. The CHC’s curated rain gauge archive contains valuable contributions from many countries. There are two versions of CHIMES: preliminary and final. The final product has more copious and better-curated station data. Every pentad and month, bias-adjusted IMERGlate fields are combined with gauge observations to create pentadal and monthly CHIMESprelim and CHIMESfinal. Comparisons with pentadal, high-quality gridded station data show that IMERGlate performs well (r = 0.75), but has some systematic biases which can be reduced. Monthly cross-validation results indicate that unbiasing increases the variance explained from 50% to 63% and decreases the mean absolute error from 48 to 39 mm month−1. Gauge enhancement then increases the variance explained to 75%, reducing the mean absolute error to 27 mm month−1.

© 2022 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Chris Funk, chrisfunk@ucsb.edu

Abstract

As human exposure to hydroclimatic extremes increase and the number of in situ precipitation observations declines, precipitation estimates, such as those provided by the Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) (IMERG) mission, provide a critical source of information. Here, we present a new gauge-enhanced dataset [the Climate Hazards Center IMERG with Stations (CHIMES)] designed to support global crop and hydrologic modeling and monitoring. CHIMES enhances the IMERG Late Run product using an updated Climate Hazards Center (CHC) high-resolution climatology (CHPclim) and low-latency rain gauge observations. CHPclim differs from other products because it incorporates long-term averages of satellite precipitation, which increases CHPclim’s fidelity in data-sparse areas with complex terrain. This fidelity translates into performance increases in unbiased IMERGlate data, which we refer to as CHIME. This is augmented with gauge observations to produce CHIMES. The CHC’s curated rain gauge archive contains valuable contributions from many countries. There are two versions of CHIMES: preliminary and final. The final product has more copious and better-curated station data. Every pentad and month, bias-adjusted IMERGlate fields are combined with gauge observations to create pentadal and monthly CHIMESprelim and CHIMESfinal. Comparisons with pentadal, high-quality gridded station data show that IMERGlate performs well (r = 0.75), but has some systematic biases which can be reduced. Monthly cross-validation results indicate that unbiasing increases the variance explained from 50% to 63% and decreases the mean absolute error from 48 to 39 mm month−1. Gauge enhancement then increases the variance explained to 75%, reducing the mean absolute error to 27 mm month−1.

© 2022 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Chris Funk, chrisfunk@ucsb.edu
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