From Satellites to Your Backyard - Dorian Wood Janney

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Water- the world's most precious resource. All around the world, NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission is collected data on how much precipitation is falling to Earth. NASA has just released its newest and most comprehensive estimate of rain and snow covering nearly 20 years. Version 6 of NASA's IMERG -- the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) -- combines information from a constellation of satellites are operating in Earth orbit, at a given time, to estimate precipitation over the majority of the Earth's surface. This algorithm is particularly valuable over the majority of the Earth's surface that lacks precipitation-measuring instruments on the ground. What is new in Version 6 IMERG is that the algorithm can now fuse the early precipitation estimates collected in 2000-2014 during the operation of the TRMM satellite with more recent precipitation estimates collected during operation of the GPM satellite. The longer the record, the more valuable it is, as researchers and application developers will attest. TRMM and GPM are two satellites specially designed to provide the most reliable space-based estimates of precipitation, and both satellites are joint missions between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Watch this short video, "NASA Remasters Nearly 20 Years of Global Rain", to learn more about the importance of this data to communities around the globe.

You can freely and easily access the GPM precipitation data for your location by following these directions. If you want to compare and contrast your GLOBE precipitation measurement data to that of the GPM satellite, follow these directions. This data would be a wonderful addition to your IVSS or other science investigations. Feel free to contact Dorian Janney at dorian.w.janney@nasa.gov if you need help with this data for your science investigations.

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