Level3 - Selected Monthly Rainfall Data Set

This data set is the monthly surface rainfall selected from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Level 3 standard products (monthly and latitude-longitude grid), estimated by the Precipitation Radar (PR), the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), the PR and TMI combined algorithm (COMB), and "TRMM and Others Combined" algorithm (TRMM, geosynchronous IR and rain gauges). The data are written in 4-byte real binary (big endian) format.

The browse images and data show the global monthly accumulated rainfall [mm/month]. However, the standard products of PR and "TRMM and Others Combined" only include the monthly mean rain rate [mm/hour]. Therefore, we also calculate and include the monthly accumulated rainfall of those products in the data set for intercomparison of those rainfall products.
In addition, the monthly mean of "TRMM and Others Combined" were derived from all pixels regardless of rainfall existence. On the other hand, pixels in which rainfall exists were used for calculation of the PR monthly mean value.

The original TRMM Level 3 standard products, PR Level 3 (3A25), TMI Level 3 (3A12) and COMB Level 3 (3B31), and "TRMM and Others Combined" Level 3(3B43) are processed and supplied by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the JAXA Earth Observation Center (EOC).

＜caveat＞

Please also be aware of the following issue for TRMM PR Level 3 products after TRMM PR switched to the B-side:
The PR anomaly has caused the loss of PR data from 29 May 2009 to 19 June 2009. As a result, the June 2009 Level 3 PR products contain only 12 days of data. This makes the June 2009 products less reliable due to the lack of sufficient data upon which to base the statistics. Please take care when using the June 2009 product for quantitative analysis.

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