Spaceborne inferences of cloud microstructure and precipitation-forming processes with height have been used to investigate the effect of ingested aerosols on clouds and to integrate the findings with past cloud physics research. The inferences were made with a method that analyzes data from NOAA/AVHRR and TRMM/VIRS sensors to determine the effective radius of cloud particles with height. In ad...

Using FORTE photodiode detector (PDD) observations of lightning, we have determined the geographic distribution of nighttime flash rate density. We estimate the PDD flash detection efficiency to be 62% for total lightning through comparison to lightning observations by the TRMM satellite’s Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS), using cases in which FORTE and TRMM viewed the same storm. We present here...

Satellite systems such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) are complex and rely on the proper design and functioning of each of its many subsystems—satellite vehicle, ground validation (GV) sites, precipitation radar (PR), calibration, and retrieval algorithms—to ensure high quality data products. The retrieval algorithms employed in TRMM are based on mathematical models and assum...

[1] An analytical algorithm for the determination of land surface temperature and soil moisture from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission/Microwave Imager (TRMM/TMI) remote sensing data has been developed in this study. The error analyses indicate that the uncertainties of the enrolled parameters will not cause serious errors in the proposed algorithm. By applying the proposed algorithm to T...

Satellite-based precipitation data have contributed greatly to quantitatively forecasting precipitation, and provides a potential alternative source for precipitation data allowing researchers to better understand patterns of precipitation over ungauged basins. However, the absence of calibration satellite data creates considerable uncertainties for The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM...