Applications

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Overview

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission has several cross-cutting application areas which contribute to and enhance our understanding of weather forecasting, disasters, ecology, health, water and agriculture and energy. Using advanced space-borne instruments, GPM measures light rain to heavy rain and falling snow, producing a near-global view of precipitation every 30 minutes. Through improved measurements of rain and snow, precipitation data from the GPM mission is used by a diverse range of applications and user communities at local to global scales to inform decision making and policy that directly benefits society.

Sections

What are Applications?

“Applications” refers to the use of mission data products in decision-making activities for societal benefit. Mission Applications take a satellite's data products and expands them into areas where they can help inform policy or decisions.

Learn more about Applied Sciences at NASA

Who's Using GPM Data?

Learn about the different people and organizations that are using GPM and other NASA Earth data to help improve life around the world.

View Articles

GPM Mentorship Program

NASA’s GPM applications team and University of Coimbra’s Earth and Space Science Center (CITEUC Portugal) have collaborated to host the GPM Mentorship Program for several years.

The program supports users from established and underrepresented user communities to provide a tailored hands-on learning experience in using GPM data for applications. It provides participants with training and tools to use state-of-the-art GPM satellite-based precipitation estimates, and helps them apply GPM data to support real-world problems and benefit their communities.

Learn more about each GPM Mentorship Program session: 2024, 2023, 2022

GPM Data for Decision Making

Get Involved

Are you using GPM satellite precipitation data in your work, or would you like to? Share your story with our team, or ask us any questions you may have using our contact form.

We also encourage you to get involved in GPM applications by attending an applications event or accessing the free and publicly available data in the data section of this site.

GPM Applications Team

Dalia Kirschbaum (NASA GSFC), GPM Mission Associate Deputy Project Scientist for Applications
Andrea Portier (NASA GSFC / SSAI), GPM Applications and Outreach Coordinator
Dorian Janney (NASA GSFC / ADNET), GPM Outreach Specialist
Jacob Reed (NASA GSFC / Telophase), GPM Web Developer

GPM Applications Materials

GPM Applications Posters (.zip / .pdf)
GPM Applications & Data Access One Pagers (.pdf)
Highlights

GPM Training Resources

Applications Featured Resources

Two Weeks of Heavy Rain and a Year of Drought Over Parts of China

IMERG precipitation over China for July 17 to 28, 2021

Thursday, July 29, 2021

During July 17 to 28, 2021, several storm systems brought heavy rain to parts of China and surrounding countries, while a nine-month-long drought persists in an adjacent part of China. NASA's multi-satellite precipitation algorithm has been monitoring this rainfall in near real-time, and the estimates are distributed to weather-forecasting agencies and disaster-monitoring organizations. This algorithm is called IMERG , the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM. GPM is the NASA / JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement mission , which launched its Core Observatory satellite in 2014. Two

IMERG analysis of monsoon rainfall in India, July 2021

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

After a relatively quiet period of below normal activity that began in the latter part of June and extended into the first half of July, and which resulted in rainfall deficits over much of India, the South Asian monsoon surged to life last week, bringing heavy rains, widespread flooding and landslides. Among the hardest hit areas was the western state of Maharashtra, which extends from the central west coast of India inland. A key geographical feature along the west coast of India is the Western Ghats. This coastal mountain range runs roughly north-south for about 1000 miles along the west

Arizona GPM DPR Convective Storm 3D View 2021 July 15

Friday, July 16, 2021

There is a monsoon that occurs in the southwestern U.S. each summer, and it brought heavy rain to the deserts of Arizona this week. This monsoon is less well known than India's Summer Monsoon, but both monsoons have similar causes [1, 2, 3]. In western Mexico and the southern edge of the southwest U.S., most of the year's rain typically falls in just three months: June, July, and August. The region is shown in light blue in the below climate map, which shows where summer rainfall predominates (Figure 1). This seasonal pattern is known as the North American Monsoon. The map was generated using

IMERG Rainfall Totals from Cyclone Tauktae

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

NASA combined data from multiple satellites in the GPM Constellation to estimate precipitation rates and totals from Tropical Cyclone Tauktae in May 2021. The below animation shows precipitation rates (blue/yellow shading) and accumulations (green shading) at half-hourly intervals from May 12-19, 2021, derived from NASA's IMERG algorithm. Underneath the precipitation data, cloud cover is shown in shades of white/gray based on geosynchronous satellite infrared observations. On top of the precipitation data, the cyclone's approximate track is displayed based on estimates from the Joint Typhoon

Monday, April 26, 2021

NASA’s Earth observation data are used in a wide variety of ways to improve life for humans and other animals across the world every day. Our climate is changing, and these changes include differences in temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe. As you might imagine, these changes bring about both anticipated and unanticipated consequences that have a profound impact on people around the world. Many organizations are responding to the amazing yet complicated wealth of data that can be used to successfully monitor many aspects of our global environment. The World Resources

Monday, April 19, 2021

Climate change increases need for global data The impacts of climate change are already having a profound effect on ecosystems. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns affect species and communities in diverse ways, such as declines in species and species diversity, changing interactions between species, and modification of ecosystems. Effective ecosystem management is critical to maintaining and repairing the natural environments in order to reliably support human needs while conserving and sustaining ecological services and diversity. Imagine how a scientist studying the movement

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

So Much Data, So Little Time NASA’s Earth-observing data are used daily in a wide variety of ways to improve life for humans and animals across the planet. Our climate is changing, and these changes are having a profound impact on communities and species in many ways. Changing extremes in precipitation and temperature are leading to a decline in species diversity, modification to ecosystems and animal habitats, as well as changing how some species interact with each other. To address this, many organizations are turning to the amazing yet complex wealth of Earth data, which can be used to

IMERG Precipitation Totals from Eastern Australia, March 16 - 23, 2021

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

During the week ending on March 23, 2021, two locations in Australia experienced unusually high rainfall totals. According to news reports a persistent system brought flooding rains to Australia's east coast from Brisbane to Sydney and points further south. The preliminary estimate from NASA's multi-satellite global precipitation analysis is that more than 24 inches fell just off the coast of Australia in 7 days with accumulations in coastal areas exceeding 16 inches. Near the Strzelecki Desert in central Australia, a storm system brought 8 inches of precipitation during the same 7-day period. Most of the rain fell during a 3-day period (0000 UTC on 20 March to 2359 UTC on 22 March).

IMERG Rainfall Rates and MUR Sea Surface Temperatures from the 2020 Hurricane Season

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Forecasters predicted an above-normal hurricane season for 2020. They weren’t wrong. As the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season smashed records with an unprecedented 30 named storms , NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Disasters Program stood up to the challenge. The Disasters Program helps leaders and responders at national, regional, and local levels leverage NASA’s technology and expertise to assess, predict, and understand disasters' impacts. The Disasters Program targets a wide range of hazards and disasters , and while NASA is not an operational response agency, the agency offers access to unique

IMERG Sees Winter Storms Impact the Southern U.S.

Friday, February 19, 2021

In mid-February 2021, large areas of the Continental United States experienced extreme cold temperatures as a result of a strong Arctic high pressure system. The cold temperatures were accompanied by several pulses of precipitation over the Southeast US through the mid-Atlantic, as well as the Pacific Northwest. The combination of cold temperatures and precipitation resulted in widespread power outages to millions of people in Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Oregon, among other states.