Precipitation Seasonality over the Indian Subcontinent: An Evaluation of Gauge, Reanalyses, and Satellite Retrievals

Abstract

Abstract This paper evaluates the seasonal (winter, premonsoon, monsoon, and postmonsoon) performance of seven precipitation products from three different sources: gridded station data, satellite-derived data, and reanalyses products over the Indian subcontinent for a period of 10 years (1997/98–2006/07). The evaluated precipitation products are the Asian Precipitation–Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of the Water Resources (APHRODITE), the Climate Prediction Center unified (CPC-uni), the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) post-real-time research products (3B42-V6 and 3B42-V7), the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim). Several verification measures are employed to assess the accuracy of the data. All datasets capture the large-scale characteristics of the seasonal mean precipitation distribution, albeit with pronounced seasonal and/or regional differences. Compared to APHRODITE, the gauge-only (CPC-uni) and the satellite-derived precipitation products (GPCP, 3B42-V6, and 3B42-V7) capture the summer monsoon rainfall variability better than CFSR and ERA-Interim. Similar conclusions are drawn for the postmonsoon season, with the exception of 3B42-V7, which underestimates postmonsoon precipitation. Over mountainous regions, 3B42-V7 shows an appreciable improvement over 3B42-V6 and other gauge-based precipitation products. Significantly large biases/errors occur during the winter months, which are likely related to the uncertainty in observations that artificially inflate the existing error in reanalyses and satellite retrievals.