Abstract
Development is well-advanced for the next version of the Integrated
Multi-satellitE Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement
(GPM) mission (IMERG), labeled Version 07. IMERG is a key output of the
U.S. GPM Science Team, and V07 will be the second generation in which
data from both the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and GPM
projects are combined into a single, uniformly processed record,
currently starting in June 2000. This presentation will show several
examples of successes and challenges in V06, and use these to illuminate
the upgrades that have been pursued for V07. For example, the V06 IMERG
near-real-time products (Early and Late Runs) show regional biases
because they do not have climatological calibration (despite the
documentation), and this will be done in V07. As well, the time series
of precipitation-rate histograms shows a seam in the transition from
TRMM calibration to GPM Core Observatory calibration at the start of
June 2014. V07 will benefit from better continuity in the input
calibration datasets across that boundary. A third issue is that the
Kalman filter used in IMERG a) introduces a variable amount of
smoothing, and b) depends on relatively simple measures of input data
quality. Both of these are revisited in V07. We will report the status
of IMERG Version 07 processing as of the conference time, and introduce
some topics that are being considered for the future, including improved
uncertainty estimates, addition of sub-monthly gauge information, and
strategies for incorporating precipitation estimates from multiple,
relatively short-lived small satellites.