EARTH SCIENCE>OCEANS>PRECIPITATION>LIQUID PRECIPITATION>RAIN
GCOM-W/AMSR2 L2 Precipitation dataset is obtained from the AMSR2 sensor onboard GCOM-W and produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). GCOM-W was launched by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 21 (H-IIA F21) at 1:39 a.m. on May 18th, 2012 (Japan Standard Time, JST) and inserted into a planned position on the "A-Train" orbit. GCOM-W equipped with AMSR2 takes measurements at multiple microwave frequencies and multiple polarizations of weak electromagnetic waves in the microwave band radiated from the Earthâs surface and the atmosphere. AMSR2 has swath of 1450 km and 7 microwave bands. The observation data will enable the creation of long-term trustworthy data sets of global physical amount. Level 2 products calculates various geophysical parameters related to water using the Level 1B or 1R products as inputs. This dataset includes Precipitation (PRC). Although "precipitation" is usually defined as amount of water, which reaches the surface of the earth from atmosphere as rain and/or snow, microwave imager's precipitation products provide amount of rain (surface rainfall). Coverage of the product is global, and unit is [mm/h]. Accuracy of rainfall estimate over land, however tends to be lower than that over the ocean. Method of rainfall estimate used in AMSR2 precipitation product is also applied to "Global Rainfall Watch" system, which distributes global rainfall map in near-real-time. The Pixel_Data_Quality is quality flag stored for each observation point. The provided format is HDF5. The Sampling resolution is 15 km. The current version of the product is Version 3. The Version 2 is also available. The generation unit is scene (defined as a half orbit).
JP/JAXA/SAOC