GESTAR II Seminar Series, September 27th at 1:00pm

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 12:34:31 -0400
gestar2

Join us for a virtual seminar by Dr. Christian Kummerow, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. His talk is titled "Precipitation -- Should we believe stated uncertainties?"

Date and Time: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 1:00pm

Join us via Teams.

Abstract:

Satellite precipitation programs often emphasize the need for (a) validating products and (b) reporting uncertainties that are essential for the proper adoption of these products. This has resulted in a long list of validation efforts and campaigns dating back to the earliest VIS/IR products and generally compare in-situ precipitation to the equivalent satellite product for a specific mission. When these studies are viewed not as individual efforts or campaigns, but in their totality, however, it becomes fairly obvious that satellite products have very different validation statistics in different regions and time periods. That is, satellite products have a large dependence on the atmospheric state that is neither random nor systematic but varies with meteorological regimes. This is the direct result of the under-constrained nature of cloud and precipitation retrievals that must be dealt with to project validation results from one region or one regime to another. While sensors with greater information content and algorithms that more fully exploit all available information can ameliorate this problem, they cannot eliminate it. This talk will illustrate these points, and make a case for a new, state-dependent validation approach that can lead to credible predictions of products and their uncertainties in areas that lack conventional data.

Biography:

Christian D. Kummerow is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. His research interests include radiation, remote sensing, and the global water cycle and its uncertainties, including how these relate to physical aspects of the atmosphere and thus the fundamental processes underlying precipitation. Prior to joining Colorado State University, he worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center serving as the project scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and as a study scientist for the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM). Dr. Kummerow is currently on the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Science Team as well as the team lead for GPM's passive microwave algorithm team. He was awarded the NASA Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award and Maryland's Distinguished Young Scientist Award. In addition to being the CIRA director, he has been a chair and member of the GEWEX Data and Assessments Panel, and the NASA Earth Science Subcommittee. He served on the Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space: Panel on Global Hydrological Cycles and Water Resources, and recently co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences' panel on Lessons Learned in the Implementation of NASA's Earth Venture Class (2022). He received his Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

For more information on the GESTAR II Seminar Series, click here.