Accuracy of TRMM precipitation data in the southwest monsoon region of China

Accurate, high-resolution precipitation data is important for hydrological applications and water resource management, particularly within mountainous areas about which data is presently scarce. The goal of the this study was to assess the accuracy of TRMM 3B43 precipitation data from the southwest monsoon region of China between 1998 and 2011 based on the correlation coefficients, regression, and geostatistical methods. We found a strong correlation between TRMM 3B43 data and observational data obtained from meteorological stations, but the TRMM 3B43 precipitation data was consistently lower than that obtained from the weather stations. The TRMM 3B43 data was significantly different from the data obtained by weather stations located in the northwest and northeast regions of the Hengduan Mountains. The spatial distribution of precipitation obtained from TRMM 3B43 was also different from meteorological data, but the deviation was predominantly distributed along the northern longitude and southern latitude. In addition, the TRMM data more accurately reflected the regional precipitation patterns. Our results indicate that the TRMM 3B43 data should be used for hydrological applications and water resource management at meteorological stations that have a sparse and uneven distribution of observation stations in the southwest monsoon region.