ABSTRACT

Water is fundamental to life on Earth. Knowing where and how much rain and snow fall globally is vital to understanding how weather and climate impact our Earth’s water and energy cycles. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory spacecraft, a partnership with the Japanese, launched February 28, 2014. The GPM instruments are designed to extend the capabilities of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM, 1997-2015) by detecting falling snow, measuring light rain, and providing global and regional three dimensional measurements of precipitation for scientific investigations and societal benefit.

GPM is an international satellite mission to unify and advance precipitation measurements from a constellation of partner satellite sensors to provide next-generation precipitation products globally every 3 hours (or less). As a science mission with integrated application goals, GPM will also help to monitor water resources, improve forecasting of extreme events that cause disasters, such as floods, droughts, and landslides.

Since launch, GPM has already provided unprecedented views of typhoons, extratropical systems, light rain, snow storms and extreme precipitation. This presentation will include new imagery and scientific insights resulting from the first year of GPM data, an overview of the mission concept and science activities, updates on algorithm status and performance, together with information on international collaborations for radiometer inter-calibration and ground validation.

About the Speaker:

Gail Skofronick-Jackson is Project Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission and the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Laboratory Chief at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, USA. She received a bachelor degree in electrical engineering from Florida State University, and a doctoral degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. Dr. Skofronick-Jackson’s scientific focus is of retrievals of ice particles in clouds and her current research interests include using active and passive satellite remote sensing to estimate falling snow.