Sensitivity of Rain-Rate Estimates Related to Convective Organization: Observations from the Kwajalein, RMI, Radar

Ground radar rainfall, necessary for satellite rainfall product (e.g., TRMM and GPM) ground validation (GV) studies, is often retrieved using annual or climatological convective/stratiform Z–R relationships. Using the Kwajalein, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), polarimetric S-band weather radar (KPOL) and gauge network during the 2009 and 2011 wet seasons, the robustness of such rain-rate relationships is assessed through comparisons with rainfall retrieved using relationships that vary as a function of precipitation regime, defined as shallow convection, isolated deep convection, and deep organized convection. It is found that the TRMM-GV 2A53 rainfall product underestimated rain gauges by −8.3% in 2009 and −13.1% in 2011, where biases are attributed to rainfall in organized precipitation regimes. To further examine these biases, 2A53 GV rain rates are compared with polarimetrically tuned rain rates, in which GV biases are found to be minimized when rain relationships are developed for each precipitation regime, where, for example, during the 2009 wet-season biases in isolated deep precipitation regimes were reduced from −16.3% to −4.7%. The regime-based improvements also exist when specific convective and stratiform Z–R relationships are developed as a function of precipitation regime, where negative biases in organized convective events (−8.7%) are reduced to −1.6% when a regime-based Z–R is implemented. Negative GV biases during the wet seasons lead to an underestimation in accumulated rainfall when compared with ground gauges, suggesting that satellite-related bias estimates could be underestimated more than originally described. Such results encourage the use of the large-scale precipitation regime along with their respective locally characterized convective or stratiform classes in precipitation validation endeavors and in development of Z–R rainfall relationships.