*Riko OKI1, Misako KACHI1, Takuji KUBOTA1, Takeshi MASAKI1, Yuki KANEKO1, Kinji FURUKAWA1, Yukari TAKAYABU2, Toshio IGUCHI3, Kenji NAKAMURA4
(1.JAXA, 2.University of Tokyo, 3.NICT, 4.Dokkyo University)
Keywords:GPM, DPR, GSMaP, ground validation
The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is a satellite program led by Japan and the U.S., to measure the global distribution of precipitation accurately in a sufficient frequency so that the information provided by this program can drastically improve hydrological predictions, climate modeling, and understanding of water cycles. The GPM Core Observatory carries the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) developed by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), and the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The frequent precipitation measurement about every three hours will be achieved by constellation satellites with microwave radiometers or microwave sounders, which will be developed by international partners. JAXA also provides the Global Change Observation Mission (GCOM) 1st ? Water (GCOM-W1) named "SHIZUKU," launched on May 18, 2012, as one of constellation satellites. The Japanese GPM research project conducts scientific activities on algorithm development, ground validation, application research including production of research products. In addition to those activities, we promote collaboration studies in Japan and Asian countries, and seek potential users of satellite precipitation products. JAXA develops the DPR Level 1 algorithm, and the NASA-JAXA Joint Algorithm Team develops the DPR Level 2 and DPR-GMI combined Level2 algorithms. JAXA also develops the Global Rainfall Map algorithm, which is a new version of the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP), as one of national products to distribute hourly and 0.1-degree horizontal resolution rainfall map. In the GPM era, the GSMaP algorithm will be improved by refining rainfall retrievals over land, considered the orographic rainfall effects, added the rain gauge corrected rainfall product. In the future, information from the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) will be compiled as a database to improve the retrieval accuracy of weak rainfall in mid-to-high latitudes.The GPM Core Observatory is scheduled to be launched from the JAXA Takengashima Space Center by the H-IIA F23 rocket around 3:07 a.m. thru 5:07 a.m. (JST) on February 28 (Fri.,) 2014. After the initial checkout (about 2-month,) calibration and validation of the DPR, GMI and other products will be implemented toward the public release of all products to general users. Data release date is currently scheduled to be 6-month after the launch.