Three-dimensional radar data for three Florida storms are used with a radiative transfer model to simulate observations at 19 GHz by a nadir pointing, satellite bourne microwave radiometer. Estimates were made of spatial sampling errors due to both horizontal and vertical variability of the precipitation. Calibrated radar data were taken as realistic representations of rainfall fields. / The optimal conversion between microwave brightness temperature and rainfall rate was highly sensitive to the spatial resolution of observations. Retrievals were made from the simulated microwave measurements using rainfall retrieval functions optimized for each resolution and for each storm case. / There is potential for microwave radiometer measurements from the planned TRMM satellite to provide better 'snapshot' estimates than area-threshold VIS/IR methods. Variability of the vertical profile of precipitation did not seriously reduce accuracy. However, it is crucial that calibration of retrieval methods be done with ground truth of the same spatial resolution.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.59910 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Turner, Barry John |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Meteorology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001237313, proquestno: AAIMM67460, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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