1. A Hydrologically-Consistent Multi-Satellite Climatology of Evaporation, Precipitation, and Water Vapor Transport Over the Oceans
Project team: Frank Wentz and Kyle Hilburn
Project status:
Year 1 & 2 (completed): Evaporation: developed algorithm, studied uncertainties, published Science paper. Precipitation: rain algorithm intercalibration, mid-latitude collaboration with George Huffman, JAMC paper. Water vapor transport: developed and tested feature tracking, studied surface wind relationship to water vapor transport, evaluated Atlas/Ardizzone NASA DISCOVER winds.
Year 3 (now): Complete and release Version-01 NEWS Passive Microwave Water Cycle (PMWC) product to the NEWS team for review.
Year 4&5: Implement suggestions from the NEWS team. Add uncertainty estimates to product.
Science issue: There is no product that provides an accurate and consistent picture of the global water cycle. We are developing a product that combines data from several satellites to provide a balanced water cycle characterization.
Approach: We are using intercalibrated and validated passive microwave satellite observations of wind speed and water vapor to estimate water vapor transport.
Satellite-based data: We are using 20-years of satellite data from 6 SSM/I on DMSP, TMI on TRMM, and AMSR on Aqua and Midori-II.
NEWS linkages: (pull, push, collaborate, external)
Get final-look Atlas/Ardizzone wind product.
Released Version-01 PMWC product to the team for review. Evaluating product with help from the team.
Collaborate with Pete Robertson, Brian Soden, and Hassan Syed evaporation and water vapor transport parameters.
We are collaborating with Joe Ardizzone as we use and study his NASA DISCOVER wind product. We are also collaborating with Deborah Smith as we use and study her NASA DISCOVER water vapor product.
Major Result to go in lower left side: Figures should not be too complex or busy – this example is probably the limit of acceptable complexity.
Global evaporation balances global precipitation: E = 962 mm/year and P = 951 mm/year. The imbalance is on the order of 1%. Trends in evaporation and precipitation have the same magnitude as trends in water vapor: E trend = 1.3 % / decade, P trend = 1.5 % / decade, and water vapor trend = 1.4 % / decade. This is in contrast with climate prediction models, which predict a muted response by precipitation. See Wentz et al., 2007, Science.
Updated: February 11, 2008