Large-scale Precipitation and Latent Heating Distributions in the Tropics from SSM/I and TRMM TMI/PR

A Bayesian retrieval technique with additional constraints is applied to satellite passive and active microwave sensor measurements to deduce three dimensional distributions of precipitation and latent heating in the atmosphere. Critical to the success of this technique is the discrimination of convective and stratiform rain regions which are associated with different dynamical and latent heating structures. Observing system simulation studies indicate reasonable agreement between "truth" and instantaneous microwave sensor estimates of rain rate, convective rain proportion, and latent heating vertical distribution.

Instantaneous estimates of precipitation and latent heating from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) are composited over monthly periods in the Tropics to deduce the large-scale patterns. Analyses of precipitation and latent heating distributions will be presented at the conference.