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ICDC
CENIntegrated Climate Data Center ICDC

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Global Precipitation from satellite and gauge measurements from GPCP

GPCP Precipitation
GPCP global daily precipitation data from satellite and gauge mesurements, 1-October-1996. Copyright: UHH/CEN/AJB

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Access

UNRESTRICTED:

  • Get GPCP precipitation data via HTTP from NOAA: monthly | daily

RESTRICTED:This link to the data set is only available for a restricted user group.  The data set is only accessible in CEN/MPI net or accessible from external nets with a customer account.  Please contact ICDC if you would like to access this data from outside the network.

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Description

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) data set that was established by the World Climate Research Programme. The general approach was 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. This data set was used for many years, currently with daily data in version 1.3 and monthly data in version 2.3.

The sources from which GPCP data are processed are measurements from ground stations and satellite data products. Infrared precipitation estimates are computed primarily from geostationary satellites (GOES - United States, Meteosat - Europe, GMS - Japan), and secondarily from polar-orbiting satellites (by NOAA, US). Additionally a merged set of infrared precipitation estimates by Geostationary Satellite Precipitation Data Center (GPSPDC) is used. Microwave oceanic precipitation estimates are based on emission from 19 Ghz channel and for land precipitation estimates from the 85 Ghz channel of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (United States) satellites that fly in sun-synchronous low-earth orbits. Low-Earth orbit estimates from 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 are also included.

Infrared and microwave satellite estimates of precipitation are merged with in situ measurements from rain gauge data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre's (GPCC) Monitoring Product of the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), used as land-surface reference for the GPCP Satellite-Gauge Combination. Therfore the combined product includes gauge-bias corrections.

The daily and monthly rainfall data are in the NetCDF format. The monthly data is available in version 2.3 and is updated at ICDC about every 3 month, when the new GPCC Monitoring product is available. In addition an absolute error is available for the monthly data. The data for the last 6 months may include the interim product, where the data quality is less secure. Please refer to the GPCP Version 2.3 description of NOAA (see references). For the daily data the version 1.3 is available. There are no error data given for the daily data.

Last update of data set at ICDC: Nov 8, 2019.

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Parameters

Parameters of the GPCP data set
NameUnit
Precipitation mm/24h
Absolute error mm/24h

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Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

  • Daily: 01/10/1996 to 31/07/2019
  • Monthly: 01/1979 to ongoing (with ~3 months latency)

Coverage and spatial resolution:

  • Global
  • Spatial resolution: 1° x 1° (daily) and 2.5° x 2.5° (monthly), cartesian grid
  • Geographic longitude: 0°E to 360°E
  • Geographic latitude: -90°N to 90°N
  • Dimension: 360 columns x 180 rows (daily), 144 columns x 72 rows (monthly)
  • Altitude: following terrain

Format:

  • NetCDF

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Data quality

Please refer to the original documentation with data descriptions for the daily data (V1.3) and the monthly data (V2.3) at NOAA in the references.

The monthly data contain information about the absolute error. The last months may be interim data, using GPCC interim product. The month from which it is interim data is specified as the NetCDF attribute in the data.

For calibration and validation, the Surface Reference Data Centre ( SRDC) acquires time series of high density gauge data from different climatic regions for long term validation of satellite estimates as well as gridded analyses. Additionally, the Algorithm Intercomparison Programme (AIP) coordinates field campaigns for the validation of satellite algorithms and the development of new algorithms.

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Contact

Official Distributor
Customer Engagement Branch
DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI > National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce
+1 (828) 271-4800
ncei.orders (at) noaa.gov

Annika Jahnke-Bornemann
ICDC / CEN / University of Hamburg
E-Mail: annika.jahnke-bornemann"AT"uni-hamburg.de

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References

Results of an extensive quality assessment of precipitation estimates from satellite data over land can be found in:

Weblinks:

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Data citation

Please cite the data as follows:

Monthly Data:

Adler, Robert; Wang, Jian-Jian; Sapiano, Matthew; Huffman, George; Chiu, Long; Xie, Ping Ping; Ferraro, Ralph; Schneider, Udo; Becker, Andreas; Bolvin, David; Nelkin, Eric; Gu, Guojun; and NOAA CDR Program (2016). Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Climate Data Record (CDR), Version 2.3 (Monthly). National Centers for Environmental Information. doi:10.7289/V56971M6 Accessed (fill in date you accessed the data).

Daily Data:

Cite as: Adler, Robert; Wang, Jian-Jian; Sapiano, Mathew; Huffman, George; Bolvin, David; Nelkin, Eric; and NOAA CDR Program (2017). Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Climate Data Record (CDR), Version 1.3 (Daily) [Indicate subset used.]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. doi:10.7289/V5RX998Z [05Nov2019]

and with the following acknowledgments:

Thanks to ICDC, CEN, University of Hamburg for data support.

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