Algorithms using the different satellite data sources to retrieve individual geophysical parameters needed in the water budget equation are designed in a manner that takes advantage of the high temporal resolution of the GOES-8 measurements as well as their physical relationships to the SSM/I passive microwave signals for water vapor, cloud liquid water, and rainfall. The methodology consists of retrieving the precipitation, surface evaporation, and the vapor-cloud water storage terms in the atmospheric water balance equation from satellite techniques, while the water vapor advection term is obtained as a residual in the balance equation. Thus, we seek to develop a purely satellite-based method for deriving the full set of terms in the atmospheric water budget equation without requiring radiosonde information for the wind velocity profile.
The algorithm is being validated by comparing water vapor transports into the targeted basin diagnosed from the satellite calculations to those obtained from a network of land-based upper air stations uniformly surrounding the basin. Total columnar atmospheric water budget results will be presented for January and July corresponding to winter-summer conditions for 1998. The calculations are carried out by merging results from the suite of algorithms used for retrieval of each term in the full water balance equation. Time permitting, a parallel set of calculations for a 3-layer atmosphere (low, middle, upper troposphere) will be presented for additional resolution of upper and lower water exchange processes.
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