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GCOS Essential Climate Variables (ECV) Precipitation: (frequency, intensity, quantity and type) is a key variable for specifying the state of the climate system. It varies considerably in space and time and requires a high-density network to observe its variability and extremes on regional scales. Precipitation is perhaps the single most important climate variable for societal use. (from the Systematic Observation Requirement for Satellite-Based Products for Climate - GCOS-17) The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) was established by the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) to address the problem of quantifying the distribution of precipitation around the globe over many years. The general approach is to combine the precipitation information available from each of several sources into a final merged product, taking advantage of the strengths of each data type. The microwave estimates are based on Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP, United States) satellites that fly in sun-synchronous low-earth orbits. The infrared (IR) precipitation estimates are computed primarily from geostationary satellites (United States, Europe, Japan), and secondarily from polar-orbiting satellites (United States). Additional low-Earth orbit estimates include the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS data from the NASA Aqua, and Television Infrared Observation Satellite Program (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) and Outgoing Longwave Radiation Precipitation Index (OPI) data from the NOAA series satellites. The gauge data are assembled and analyzed by the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) of the Deutscher Wetterdienst and by the Climate Prediction Center of NOAA. (from the NASA/GSFC web site) [ECV Matrix Main Page] [About the ECV Matrix] [Reference Documents] [Contact] [Updated July 26, 2010]
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