Comparison of different satellite-derived rainfall products with IMD gridded data over Indian meteorological subdivisions during Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) 2016 at weekly temporal resolution

Abstract

Abstract In this study, effort is made to estimate weekly rainfall over India at 36 meteorological subdivisions during monsoon 2016 (June to September) by using several precipitation products from different satellites which include Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) INSAT-3D derived Hydro Estimate (HE), INSAT Multi-Spectral Rainfall Algorithm (IMSRA) rainfall products, Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) derived from JPL, NASA, and National Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) Merged Satellite Gauge (NMSG) of IMD. Different satellite estimates, and rain gauge satellite merged products have been compared with gridded rainfall products prepared by India Meteorological Department (IMD). HE at 4\u202fkm pixel resolution and IMSRA at 0.100\u202f×\u202f0.100 resolution are derived rainfall products from Indian satellite INSAT-3D.GPM (IMERG) product is derived at 0.100\u202f×\u202f0.100 resolution from Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) satellite jointly operated by JAXA (Japan) and NASA (USA). NCMRWF Merged Satellite-Gauge (NMSG) rainfall data has been generated at a 0.25°\u202f×\u202f0.25° grid resolution by IMD & NCMRWF. The data is analyzed preliminarily for the southwest monsoon season of 2016 at weekly temporal resolution. The overall comparison shows that GPM (IMERG) estimates better rainfall over the coastal and plain region, however, HE estimates better rainfall over the hilly region, in general, and for Kerala region, particularly. NMSG product needs improvement over the hilly region and considerable improvement is required in IMSRA product. For all 36 meteorological subdivisions, NMSG product has 0.56 average Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies (NSE) for 17\u202fweeks with IMD Gridded rainfall data. However, for satellite-derived rainfall by GPM (IMERG), HE and IMSRA have 0.29, 0.1 and −0.8 average NSE at 17\u202fweeks, respectively. Based on this study, it is concluded that NMSG daily rainfall product is best, however, amongst satellite-derived rainfall, overall GPM gives a better result with a few exceptions and IMSRA need more modifications.