Content which is not specifically affiliated with GPM or TRMM, but which is about the Precipitation Measurement Missions in general.
Date and Location:
July 5, 2011
Maricopa, Arizona
How this Photo was Taken:
“This photo was taken in a wash that runs through my neighborhood in Maricopa, AZ. The wash runs north/south through the neighborhood and the haboob (type of intense dust storm) was rolling in from the east.
It was taken on 7/5/11 in the afternoon, not long before sunset.
Date and Location:
May 22, 2011
Dane County, Wisconsin
How this Photo was Taken:
“I was out on a farm with a photography club for the purpose of photographing farm life -- animals, barns, etc. I saw this impressive thunderstorm building several miles to the east of where we were and ended up focusing on that while the others in the group continued to follow the goats and horses around. This is one of many examples of how a completely unplanned photo wound up being among my best photos.
Date and Location:
May 15, 2012
Ormond Beach, Florida
This instrument is a vertical profiler radar that delivers information about structure in the atmospheric column and enables scientists to estimate the vertical distribution of rainfall. At all times of the day, light rainfall is the dominant type of precipitation.
Light rainfall is the most reliable and most frequent form of rainfall in the region, contributing 50 to 60 percent of the total precipitation over a year. Light rain is no less than the lifeline of freshwater resources for the landscape’s ecosystems.
This excerpt from the March-April 2012 edition of The Earth Observer provides a summary of the activities at the PMM Science Team Meeting which took place from November 7 - 10 2011. The meeting brought together over 150 participants from 10 countries, and included representatives from NASA, JAXA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), universities, industry, and other international partner agencies.
TRMM and GPM rely on active and passive instruments to measure the properties of precipitation from space.
Active radars, such as the TRMM Precipitation Radar, transmit and receive signals reflected back to the radar. The signal returned to the radar receiver (called radar reflectivity) provides a measure of the size and number of rain/snow drops at multiple vertical layers in the cloud (Left figure).
In addition to the PMM satellites, TRMM and GPM, roughly a dozen other satellites carry precipitation-relevant sensors. The goal of multi-satellite algorithms is to use “all” of the available quasi-global precipitation estimates computed from this international constellation of satellites to create a High-Resolution Precipitation Product with complete coverage over the chosen domain and period of record (currently 50°N-50°S, 1998-present).
