This project aims to build a long-term record of size and intensity of precipitation systems from both active and passive microwave satellite observations. The main question to address is the…

This federal contract award, valued at $250,994.00, was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC). The project aims to build a long-term record of the size and intensity of precipitation systems from satellite observations, with the goal of better understanding the natural variability of storm systems globally and regionally. This fundamental climate research will help differentiate genuine climate change from natural weather variability. TAMU-CC, as part of the larger Texas A&M University System, has extensive expertise in areas like environmental science, marine biology, and climate research, making it well-suited to execute this contract. The award does not have a set-aside designation, and the contract period runs through March 31, 2020.

This project aims to build a long-term record of size and intensity of precipitation systems from both active and passive microwave satellite observations. The main question to address is the natural variability of storm systems, globally and regionally. This fundamental knowledge of the true variance of storm properties, especially of extreme events, is essential if we are to have scientifically valid assessments of trends, and separate genuine climate change from the large variability in occurrence of severe weather events. To answer these questions, we will use the precipitation feature algorithm to describe the properties of precipitations systems and their properties. The precipitation features are defined by grouping contiguous regions of precipitation detected by trmm precipitation radar. With 16+ years of trmm precipitation radar observations from december 1997 to september 2014, there are enough samples to describe variations in properties of precipitation systems over various regions in the tropics and subtropics. First, the probability density function of sizes of precipitation features will be analyzed seasonally and yearly over different regions. With these pdfs, we will examine the interannual shifts of sizes of precipitation systems over different regions, which directly indicate if precipitation systems are becoming more or less organized. Then we will construct seasonal and annual pdfs of intensities of events based on the heights reached by radar echoes of specific strengths in precipitation features. These pdfs will be a good monitor of variations of severity of convection in these systems. For the regions outside of trmm coverage we plan to use abundant passive microwave observations. The inter-calibrated passive microwave brightness temperatures from special sensor microwave imager date back to the late 1980S and are publicly available. A similar precipitation feature algorithm has been developed to group contiguous areas of cold ssmi 85 brightness temperatures.we plan to analyze the pdfs sizes and intensity proxies from cold brightness temperatures in ssmi precipitation features. This will provide a long record of the sizes and intensities of convective systems. We plan to distribute the new science products through a website interface that is currently maintained at texas a & m corpus christi. This web interface has been extensively used in the universities and outreach programs in the past. A set of tools will be developed to display and distribute the PF science products through the google map so that IT is easy to access the products interactively with a web browser.