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Estimation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall using Kalpana-1 VHRR data and its validation using rain gauge and GPCP data

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Abstract

In the present study, an attempt has been made to estimate and validate the daily and monthly rainfall during the Indian summer monsoon seasons of 2008 and 2009 using INSAT (Indian National Satellite System) Multispectral Rainfall Algorithm (IMSRA) technique utilizing Kalpana-1 very high resolution radiometer (VHRR) measurements. In contrary to infrared (IR), microwave (MW) rain rates are based on measurements that sense precipitation in clouds and do not rely merely on cloud top temperature. Geostationary satellites provide broad coverage and frequent refresh measurements but microwave measurements are accurate but sparse. IMSRA technique is the combination of the infrared and microwave measurements which make use of the best features of both IR- and MW-based rainfall estimates. The development of this algorithm included two major steps: (a) classification of rain-bearing clouds using proper cloud classification scheme utilizing Kalpana-1 IR and water vapor (WV) brightness temperatures (Tb) and (b) collocation of Kalpana-1 IR brightness temperature with Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-Precipitation Radar (PR) surface rain rate and establishment of a regression relation between them. In this paper, the capability of IMSRA as an operational algorithm has been tested for the two monsoon seasons 2008 and 2009. For this, IMSRA has been used to estimate daily and monthly rainfall and has been intercompared on daily and monthly scales with TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA)-3B42 V6 product and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) rain product during these two monsoon years. The daily and monthly IMSRA rainfall has also been validated against ground-based observations from Automatic Weather Station (AWS) Rain Gauge and Buoy data. The algorithm proved to be in good correlation with AWS data over land up to 0.70 for daily rain estimates except orographic regions like North-East and South-West India and 0.72 for monthly rain estimates. The validation with Buoys gives the reasonable correlation of 0.49 for daily rain estimates and 0.66 for monthly rain estimates over Tropical Indian Ocean.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Director, Space Applications centre for the encouragements for the research work carried out in the present study. The TMPA-3B42 and GPCP data from TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS), RAMA Buoy data from Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and Kalpana-1 data and AWS data provided by MOSDAC are thankfully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. OSD/MOG/RESA, Meteorology and Oceanography Group, Remote Sensing Area, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmadabad, 380 015, India

    Satya Prakash, C. Mahesh, R. M. Gairola & P. K. Pal

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  1. Satya Prakash
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  2. C. Mahesh
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  3. R. M. Gairola
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  4. P. K. Pal
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Correspondence to R. M. Gairola.

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Prakash, S., Mahesh, C., Gairola, R.M. et al. Estimation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall using Kalpana-1 VHRR data and its validation using rain gauge and GPCP data. Meteorol Atmos Phys 110, 45–57 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-010-0106-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-010-0106-8

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