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TRMM Composite Climatology (TCC)
One of the main goals of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has been to accurately define the climatological surface rainfall in the tropics. This TRMM Composite Climatology (TCC) consists of a merger of selected TRMM rainfall products over both land and ocean to give a "TRMM-best” climatological estimate. Inputs to the composite were selected based on knowledge of the performance of the retrievals, limitations of the algorithms, and the presence of artifacts. Over ocean the rainfall estimates used for the TCC are from TMI (2A12), PR (2A25, near surface) and combined TMI-PR (2B31). Over land the rainfall estimates from the TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA, 3B43) are used to replace those from the TMI, because the land estimates from 2A12 (Version 6) are known to overestimate surface rainfall during the warm season. Other adjustments or quality control steps are taken, including adjusting the post-boost PR data to match the pre-boost (more sensitive) PR retrievals and eliminating small artifacts related to coastlines and islands. Maps of month-of-the-year climatologies of all four products (including adjustments and quality control steps) are then calculated at 0.5° latitude-longitude resolution from 36°N to 36°S, using twelve years (1998-2009) of TRMM V6 data. A simple mean of the three products (a different set of three over land and ocean) produces the final TCC estimate. In addition to the mean precipitation estimates, the TCC includes the variation among the three estimates (in terms of the standard deviation, σ) at each point to give an estimate of the error in the estimated mean value, at least in a relative sense. Details of the procedure and results and comparison with other data sets can be found in the reference below.
There are 78 data files in this TCC data directory: 13 each (annual and month-of-year) for 2A12, 2A25, 2B31, 3B43, TCC, and standard deviation of TCC. The file name means: type.month.TRMMversion.bin. Each file is one grid, and the grid is 0.5 degree. The data are from west to east starting from 0.25E (720 grids), and north to south starting from 35.75N (144 grids). Thirteen GIF files of TCC rainfall (12 months and annual mean) as well as a README file to help users reading the data are also included
The preceding text was written in September 2010.
Reference:
Adler, R. F., J.-J. Wang, G. Gu, and George J. Huffman, 2009: A ten-year tropical rainfall climatology based on a composite of TRMM products. J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan, 87A, 281-293.
This article can be downloaded from the journal website
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jmsj/87A/0/_contents
TCC Data Directory (V06 and V07 Data)
TCC Images (V07)
