The Megha-Tropiques rainfall products ground validation plan

The Megha-Tropiques satellite, dedicated to water and energy budget in the Tropical atmosphère was successfully launched in October 2011. This Tropical member of GPM will provide an enhanced sampling of the convective systems in the inter-tropical band and will contribute to better estimations of the precipitation in this zone. Applications of the MT rainfall products are expected in a range of fields, ranging from climate studies to hydrology, or even health (vector based disease monitoring). We will review the Megha-Tropiques Ground Validation Activities in the inter-tropical zone. Both direct evaluation of the rainfall products by comparison with ground reference, and integrated (or hydrological) validation are planned. The ground reference will be provided by weather radar or rain gage networks, from operational or research projects. A validation super site based on a polarimetric radar has been set up in West Africa. We will discuss the various methods that will be applied to evaluate both the level 2 (instant rainfall) and level 4 (gridded, daily rainfall) , and how we are intending to account for uncertainties and sampling errors in our validation reports