Observational analysis reveals strong precipitation-topography coupling across the tropics using satellite radar, indicating robust gradient resolution in high-rainfall mountain regions.
To investigate processes related to the interaction of topography and precipitation, a tropics‐wide (±36° latitude) high resolution (0.1°) ten year (1998–2007) rainfall climatology is presented from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar (PR) using algorithm 2A25 version 6 near‐surface rain. We observe a tight coupling between precipitation and topography with distinct precipitation‐topography relationships present in northwest South America and South Asia. An error model is developed by subsampling the TRMM Multi‐satellite Precipitation Analysis as sampled by the PR. The error model predicts observed sampling error as a function of resolution, rain rate and sampling frequency with an r 2 of 0.82. This error model indicates that the precipitation climatology at 0.1° resolution does resolve precipitation gradients in regions with large average daily rain totals including the Andes, Western Ghats, and Himalaya.
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Nesbitt et al. (2009) studied this question.
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