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Better Weather Prediction and Climate Diagnostics Using Rainfall Measurements from SpaceProgress in understanding of the role of water in global weather and climate is currently limited by our knowledge of the spatial and temporal variability of primary hydrological fields such as precipitation and evaporation. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has recently demonstrated that use of microwave-based rainfall observations from space in data assimilation can provide better climate data sets and improve short-range weather forecasting. At NASA, we have been exploring non-traditional approaches to assimilating TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Special Sensor Microwavehager (SSM/I) surface rain rate and latent heating profile information in global systems. In this talk we show that assimilating microwave rain rates using a continuous variational assimilation scheme based on moisture tendency corrections improves quantitative precipitation estimates (QPE) and related clouds, radiation energy fluxes, and large-scale circulations in the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) reanalyses. Short-range forecasts initialized with these improved analyses also yield better QPE scores and storm track predictions for Hurricanes Bonnie and Floyd. We present a status report on current efforts to assimilate convective and stratiform latent heating profile information within the general variational framework of model parameter estimation to seek further improvements. Within the next 5 years, there will be a gradual increase in microwave rain products available from operational and research satellites, culminating to a target constellation of 9 satellites to provide global rain measurements every 3 hours with the proposed Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission in 2007/2008. Based on what has been learned from TRMM, there is a high degree of confidence that these observations can play a'major role in improving weather forecasts and producing better global datasets for understanding the Earth's water and energy cycle. The key to success is to adopt an integrated approach to retrieval, validation, modeling, and data assimilation in a coordinated end-to-end observation-application program.
Document ID
20040012863
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Hou, Arthur
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Zhang, Sara
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Li, Jui-Lin
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Reale, Oreste
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2002
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Meeting Information
Meeting: American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting
Location: Long Beach, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: February 9, 2003
End Date: February 13, 2003
Sponsors: American Meteorological Society
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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