Microwave rainfall monitoring: a Tuscany study case

The present work empirically deals with the challenging problem of the integration of data obtained from passive and active microwave sources, in order to develop procedures to suitably calibrate and validate satellite-based passive microwave rainfall algorithms by means of near simultaneous multi-parameter radar information acquired over the same area. SSM/I passive microwave radiometer precipitation related parameters have been compared with multi-parameter radar Zh and Zdr constant-altitude and vertical profile maps, obtained from CAPPI and RHI data from the POLAR-55C meteorological radar, located near Florence in Italy. As a result, such investigation proved the importance of considering the different vertical penetrations due to the diverse microwave channels, in order to work out better regression laws between the passive and active data.