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Scientists Evaluate Accuracy of Two Daily-Precipitation Products over Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Aug 16, 2019

Precipitation is an indispensable element in the study of the impact and response of climate change. High spatial and temporal resolution, wide coverage and accurate gridded precipitation data are important for climate change analysis, water resources management, hydrological forecasting, geological hazard analysis and drought monitoring.

However, high-resolution, long-term and accurate daily-precipitation is difficult to measure and has been rarely measured over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) because of the high altitude and complex terrain.

Recently, a research group from Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (NIEER) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences evaluated the accuracy of two long-term satellite-based quantitative rainfall estimate products in daily scale by comparing them with 104 rain gauges over the QTP. The study was published in Atmospheric Research.

The researchers attempted to evaluate and compare these two precipitation datasets, and they believe that the study will provide important reference for future precipitation-related research over the QTP. Two daily-precipitation products CHIRPS (Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations data) and MSWEP (Multi-source weighted-Ensemble Precipitation) have shown great potential in the precipitation-related study of the QTP.

When compared to rain gauge observations, CHIRPS and MSWEP daily-precipitation products represent well the spatial and temporal distribution of the mean daily precipitation over the QTP, while both of them overestimate the daily-precipitation (0.18 mm/d for CHIIRPS, 0.56 mm/d for MSWEP).

Besides, both products are less accurate in dry conditions (the north QTP, winter) than in moist conditions (the south QTP, summer). Light precipitation events (0-2 mm/d) are underestimated but heavy precipitation events (2-25 mm/d) are overestimated.

The results showed that although the accuracy of MSWEP is higher than that of CHIRPS, the latter has higher spatial resolution (0.05°) and is more suitable for small-scale studies.

Contact

SHANGGUAN Donghui

Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources

E-mail:

Evaluation and comparison of CHIRPS and MSWEP daily-precipitation products in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau during the period of 1981–2015

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