Overview
The Surface Reference Data Center (SRDC) was established in 1987 to support the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) which is a subprogram of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX). The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) provides climate researchers with conveniently accessible global precipitation statistics for use in:
(i) Validation of atmospheric general circulation and climate models.
(ii) Determination of the budgets of land surface moisture and runoff, ocean freshwater and atmospheric water vapor.
(iii) Initialization of climate models.
(iv) Understanding the relationship of precipitation to the tropical atmosphere's principal periodic or quasi-periodic forcings.
The GPCP incorporates conventional raingauge measurements for continental areas, geostationary satellite infrared images for the estimation of monthly convective-type precipitation totals in the 40 N-40 S latitude belt, and polar-orbiting satellite microwave radiances for estimating frontal-type precipitation in extra-tropical oceanic regions. The GPCP began operations in 1987 and will provide global precipitation fields for the period 1986-2000.
Since satellites estimate rainfall through a transform of received radiance, the estimates must be verified using samples of accurate surface rainfall measurements. The SRDC, through World Wide Web access, provides researchers with samples of gridded, time-space raingauge measurements over various regions of the globe. It is important that the samples are taken from gauge networks where the spatial density is high enough to insure accurate estimation. Research into various interpolation methods and hybrid verification techniques is ongoing in an effort to provide space-time rainfall data products containing the lowest possible amount of uncertainty. We also believe it is important to include with the data products a measure of the uncertainty. This allows researchers to define whether or not the products meet their particular needs.
The SRDC was originally at the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) and has been recently relocated to the Environmental Verification and Analysis Center (EVAC) at the University of Oklahoma.
Please send comments or questions concerning this web page to mdklatt@ou.edu.
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© 2002, The Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma