Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E)
Rainfall Products
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Sensor Description:
- AMSR-E is a concically scanning passive microwave radiometer sensing
microwave radiation at 12 channels and 6 frequencies ranging from
6.9 to 89 GHz. The AMSR-E instrument is on board the EOS Aqua
platform and has been operating since June of 2002.
Algorithm Description:
- GPROF 2008: The rainfall algorithm used to compute rainfall estimates from the AMSR-E brightness temperature data is the 2008 release of the Goddard PROFiling algorithm (GPROF) [Kummerow et al., 2001, Masunaga and Kummerow, 2005]. The AMSR-E version of GPROF is run operationally and level 2 (i.e. instantaneous pixel resolution) rainfall estimates are distributed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Additional information is available on the AMSR-E implementation details.
- Version Information:
- GPR08.B3 (GPROF 2008 beta version 3): B3 is a beta version 3, indicating that the rainfall estimates from this beta version are still preliminary.
Input Brightness Temperature Data:
- The rainfall products provided here are computed from the Level 1C brightness temperature dataset.
Data Availability:
- The EOS Aqua satellite carrying AMSR-E is in a polar orbit providing near global coverage. It was launched on May 4, 2002 and rainfall estimates from AMSR-E are available starting June 1, 2002 and continuing to the present.
Rainfall Data:
- FTP Daily and Monthly Gridded Rainfall Data Files
- File Format Specification for Daily Gridded Rainfall Files
- File Format Specification for Monthly Gridded Rainfall Files
Rainfall Images:
- Create/Display Daily Rainfall Images
- Create/Display Monthly Rainfall Images
- FTP Pre-rendered Rainfall Images
Software:
- Get software to read the binary gridded rainfall files.
Additional Documentation/References:
– Wilheit, T., C. Kummerow and R. Ferraro, 2003: Rainfall algorithms for AMSR-E, IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Rem. Sensing, 41, 204-214. – Kummerow, C., Y. Hong, W. S. Olson, S. Yang, R. F. Adler, J. McCollum, R. Ferraro, G. Petty, D. B. Shin, and T. T. Wilheit, 2001: The evolution of the Goddard profiling algorithm (GPROF) for rainfall estimation from passive microwave sensors, J. Appl. Meteor., 40, 1801-1820. – Masunaga, H. and C. D. Kummerow, 2005: Combined radar and radiometer analysis of precipitation profiles for a parametric retrieval algorithm, J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 22, 909-929. Related Links:
- National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
- NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
- JAXA Earth Observation Research Center (EORC)