Correction of real-time satellite precipitation with satellite soil moisture observations

Zhan, W.; Pan, M.; Wanders, N.; Wood, E. F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4275-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4275-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4275-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article

|

22 Oct 2015

Research article |

| 22 Oct 2015

Correction of real-time satellite precipitation with satellite soil moisture observations

W. Zhan, M. Pan, N. Wanders, and E. F. Wood

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Oct 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Jun 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C2262: 'review', Anonymous Referee #1, 26 Jun 2015
- AC C3415: 'Reply to Referee #1', Wang Zhan, 01 Sep 2015
RC C2487: 'Comments and Suggestions for Authors', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Jul 2015
- AC C3412: 'Reply to Referee #2', Wang Zhan, 01 Sep 2015
EC C3061: 'New aspects beyond Wanders et al. (2015)?', Wolfgang Wagner, 12 Aug 2015
- AC C3413: 'Reply to editor comment', Wang Zhan, 01 Sep 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (02 Sep 2015) by Wolfgang Wagner

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (08 Sep 2015) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Sep 2015) by Wolfgang Wagner

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 Sep 2015)

RR by Luca Brocca (18 Sep 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

GENERAL COMMENTS

I found the paper significantly improved and the reviewers’ comments successfully addressed. Specifically, the description of the method and of the results is now clear and detailed as needed (at least for me). The comparison with previous studies is also well done and highly interesting. The differences with Wanders et al. (2015) are now evident. Anyhow, I have completely re-read the paper and I still have some minor comments to be addressed.

1) Lines 78-82: does it mean that it is better to use LST data with respect to soil moisture? It is not clear to me by reading this sentence.

2) At lines 83-93 it reads: “But this isn’t always the case, and it is also noted that current low-frequency microwave soil moisture missions (specifically SMAP and SMOS) don’t have radiometers at frequencies useful for estimating land surface temperatures, even though a 37 GHz sensor is part of the AMSR2 system. In fact SMAP and ECMWF/SMOS use LST from weather models analysis fields in their algorithms. Unfortunately the lowest microwave frequency of AMSR2 and SMOS precludes retrieving soil moisture from many areas with heavy vegetation, and AMSR2 has a significant dry bias with less availability than AMSR-E, but is no longer operable. So improvements to satellite precipitation from the Global Precipitation Mission products must reply solely on satellite soil moisture products from SMAP, which is promises better soil moisture retrievals due to increased penetration depth, and the improvements to the assimilation algorithms is the goal of this study.”
I found this paragraph unfair and also with some wrong sentences. I suggest strongly revise it.
I do not believe it is a good justification the use of soil moisture, instead of LST, simply saying that current missions don’t have frequencies useful for estimating land surface temperatures. It is not the case for AMSR2 (currently in orbit) and also for Chinese sensors. B) SMOS is operating at L-band as SMAP. Why SMOS should have a more problems than SMAP in highly vegetated areas? Why “ECMWF/SMOS” and not only SMOS? C) “So improvements to satellite precipitation from the Global Precipitation Mission products must reply solely on satellite soil moisture products from SMAP”. This sentence is wrong and should be changed. D) Note also that scatterometer data from ASCAT are found to provide highly useful information for rainfall correction/retrieval in studies by Crow et al. and Brocca et al. I guess it should be acknowledged.

3) Lines 219-220: is the correction made pixel by pixel? Please specify.

4) Line 378: Please revise the sentence.

5) Line 392: “Consistent with other studies” Add here the references to that studies.

6) Lines 490-491: In Brocca et al. (2014) three global scale DAILY rainfall products are obtained from ASCAT, AMSR-E and SMOS soil moisture products. The performance is computed for 5-day cumulated rainfall as the temporal resolution of the sensors (mainly SMOS) was not suitable for high resolution (daily) rainfall estimation. Therefore, 5-day precipitation is not estimated by considering “soil moisture changed over a 5-day period”. Please change.
Note also that recently in Ciabatta et al. (2015, JHM: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-14-0108.1) daily rainfall product from ASCAT is obtained through the same approach in Brocca et al. (2014), and the integration of ASCAT-derived rainfall with TRMM provided significant improvements in all performance scores even for 1-day precipitation. Moreover, very recent results with accurate estimation of 1-day rainfall (still in preparation, not yet published on journals but only at conferences) are coming.

7) Line 518-520: please revise the sentence, something seems missing.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (28 Sep 2015) by Wolfgang Wagner

AR by Wang Zhan on behalf of the Authors (03 Oct 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Oct 2015) by Wolfgang Wagner