Abstract
The retrieval of satellite rainfall estimates from multi-platform Earth observations has received much attention over the last decade. The Passive Microwave – InfraRed algorithm, developed at the University of Birmingham, has been operating in a quasi-operational mode since 2002. The algorithm combines the temporally-rich information from the infrared geostationary observations with the more quantitative, but less frequent, rainfall information from the passive microwave polar-orbiting satellites. Co-located infrared and passive microwave information is entered into a database which is used to generate the relationship between the surface rainfall and infrared cloud top temperatures at a centred-weighted 5舁×舁5 scale. The technique produces rainfall estimates at a temporal resolution of 30 min and a spatial resolution of 0.1舁×舁0.1: the user can then aggregate these results to suit their requirements.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank NASA under their Precipitation Measurement Missions programme for their continuing support of this research. Global infrared data is provided courtesy of the Climate Prediction Center and John Janowiak; passive microwave data from the SSM/I is courtesy of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center, NASA/MSFC.
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Kidd, C., Muller, C. (2010). The Combined Passive Microwave-Infrared (PMIR) Algorithm. In: Gebremichael, M., Hossain, F. (eds) Satellite Rainfall Applications for Surface Hydrology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2915-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2915-7_5
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