Hydrologic evaluation of the latest bias-corrected satellite precipitation products over the Huaihe River basin

Bias-corrected satellite quantitative precipitation estimate (QPE) products may reduce the errors in near real-time satellite precipitation by combining rain gauge data, which provides great potential to hydrometeorological simulations. This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the four latest bias-corrected satellite QPEs, including NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission 3B42 Version 7 (TRMM) data, Climate Prediction Center (CPC) bias-corrected MORPHing technique (CMORPH) data (CMORPH-CRT) and CMORPH gauge-satellite combined product (CMORPH-BLD) developed at NOAA/CPC, and CMORPH gauge-satellite combined product developed at the National Meteorological Information Center (NMIC) of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) (CMORPH-CMA). These four satellite QPEs are assessed in the Huaihe River basin during 2003-2012 and applied into the distributed variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model to compare their capability in streamflow simulations.

Compared to the China Gauge-based Daily Precipitation Analysis (CGDPA) newly developed at CMA/NMIC, the four satellite QPEs generally capture the spatial distribution well, with the underestimation in the south mountains and overestimation in the north plain. In winter, TRMM and CMORPH-CRT have low quality, and CMORPH-CRT suffers from a seriously negative bias, while CMORPH-BLD and CMORPH-CMA perform more stable with the season variation. CMORPH-BLD shows a positive bias of light precipitation and a negative bias of heavy precipitation. When the VIC model is calibrated with the gauge-based analysis, both daily and monthly streamflow simulations show good temporal correlations with the observations using the four satellite QPEs as the input forcing. CMORPH-CMA forced streamflow simulations even outperform that forced by the gauge-based analysis. In contrast, CMORPH-CRT shows the worst simulations in both long-term streamflow and extreme flood events. Calibrating the VIC model with individual satellite QPE further improves streamflow simulations compared to the model calibrated with the gauge-based analysis.

Keywords: Quantitative precipitation estimate (QPE), satellite precipitation product, TRMM, CMORPH, streamflow, VIC model