Frequently Asked Questions!
- Why are there differences between rainfall maps from different sensors for the same day/month?
- Differences in the characteristics of the sensors including the number and/or frequency of the channels as well as the spatial resolution, which is dependent on the height of the satellite and the size of the antenna, can affect the sensitivity of the instrument to light rainfall. This may be more noticeable over regions where light rain events are more common. In addition, many of the satellites are in a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning they observe a given location on the Earth at the same local times each day. As a result, variability associated with diurnal heating etc. can produce biases relative to another sensor in a different orbit.