A Comparison of the NCEP–NCAR Reanalysis Precipitation and the GPCP Rain Gauge–Satellite Combined Dataset with Observational Error Considerations

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Abstract
The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) has released monthly mean estimates of precipitation that comprise gauge observations and satellite-derived precipitation estimates. Estimates of standard random error for each month at each grid location are also provided in this data release. One of the primary intended uses of this dataset is the validation of climatic-scale precipitation fields that are produced by numerical models. Nearly coincident with this dataset development, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have joined in a cooperative effort to reanalyze meteorological fields from the present back to the 1940s using a fixed state-of-the-art data assimilation system and large input database. In this paper, monthly accumulations of reanalysis precipitation are compared with the GPCP combined rain gauge–satellite dataset over the period 1988–95. A unique feature of this comparison is the use of standard error estimates tha... Abstract The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) has released monthly mean estimates of precipitation that comprise gauge observations and satellite-derived precipitation estimates. Estimates of standard random error for each month at each grid location are also provided in this data release. One of the primary intended uses of this dataset is the validation of climatic-scale precipitation fields that are produced by numerical models. Nearly coincident with this dataset development, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have joined in a cooperative effort to reanalyze meteorological fields from the present back to the 1940s using a fixed state-of-the-art data assimilation system and large input database. In this paper, monthly accumulations of reanalysis precipitation are compared with the GPCP combined rain gauge–satellite dataset over the period 1988–95. A unique feature of this comparison is the use of standard error estimates tha...

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