CHOMPS: CICS High-Resolution Optimally Interpolated Microwave Precipitation from Satellites

CHOMPS utilizes all available passive microwave satellite estimates to develop improved global daily rainfall time series. No IR values are used. Satellite sources include SSM/I, AMSU, AMSR-E and TRMM. The most recent/accurate and consistent retrieval schemes have been used in the creation of the individual precipitation estimates. The original data are binned and optimal interpolation is used to merge the data and reduce errors. There are two data sets versions. One includes all passive satellite sources (CHOMPS) and one that does not include data from the AMSU sensor (CHOMPS-NoA). This was done to account for possible discontinuities when the AMSU instrument was added.
Key Strengths
Uses all available passive microwave satellite estimates and most recent/accurate and consistent retrieval schemes
Data from multiple satellites binned to reduce diurnal sampling biases and optimal interpolation used to reduce random errors. Error estimates provided.
High temporal and spatial resolution
Key Figures

Table showing source of data use. [SOURCE: http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~rjoseph/CHOMPS/TableSourceData.htm]
Other Information
multiple satellite microwave sensors
0.25x0.25
- Joseph, Renu, Thomas M. Smith, Mathew R. P. Sapiano, Ralph R. Ferraro, 2009: A New High-Resolution Satellite-Derived Precipitation Dataset for Climate Studies. J. Hydrometeor, 10, 935–952
- M. Tugrul Yilmaz, P. Houser, R. Shrestha, V. G. Anantharaj. (2010) Optimally Merging Precipitation to Minimize Land Surface Modeling Errors. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 49:3, 415-423