Effect of Temporal Sampling on Inferred Rainfall Spatial Statistics

Abstract On the basis of temporally sampled data obtained from satellites, spatial statistics of rainfall can be estimated. In this paper, the authors compare the estimated spatial statistics with their “true” or ensemble values calculated using 5 yr of 15-min radar-based rainfall data at a spatial domain of 512 km × 512 km in the central United States. The authors conducted a Monte Carlo sampling experiment to simulate different sampling scenarios for variable sampling intervals and rainfall averaging periods. The spatial statistics used are the moments of spatial distribution of rainfall, the spatial scaling exponents, and the spatial cross correlations between the sample and ensemble rainfall fields. The results demonstrated that the expected value of the relative error in the mean rain-rate estimate is zero for rainfall averaged over 5 days or longer, better temporal sampling produces average fields that are “less noisy” spatially, an increase in the sampling interval causes the sampled rainfall to be...