Date of Submission

Fall 2014

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Physics

Project Advisor 1

Matthew Deady

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The goal of this thesis is to provide a better analysis framework towards understanding the effects of thermodynamic variables of the atmosphere on satellite precipitation detection. Satellite precipitation data from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM) is compared with concurrent data from the National Mosaic and Qualitative Precipitation Estimate system (NMQ). The need for improvement in satellite precipitation detection comes from a dearth in extreme weather forecasting throughout impoverished and developing parts of the world, as well as oceans and places of scarce coverage. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission, which launched in February 2014, holds much promise in providing near worldwide coverage. GPM uses a microwave radiometer as well as a dual frequency radar to detect precipitation, while NMQ uses a bevy of ground based radars and rain gauges. The imprecisions of GPM’s microwave radiometer are tested against surface temperature and relative humidity measurements in the Poughkeepsie, NY area. This analysis structure is developed to be able to find dependence between poor correlation of the two datasets (NMQ and GPM) and the thermodynamic environment of the present atmosphere.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Download

This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.

Bard Off-campus Download

Bard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.

Share

COinS