Chapters authored
WMO Space-Based Weather and Climate Extremes Monitoring Demonstration Project (SEMDP): First Outcomes of Regional Cooperation on Drought and Heavy Precipitation Monitoring for Australia and Southeast Asia
To improve monitoring of extreme weather and climate events from space, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) initiated the space-based weather and climate extremes monitoring demonstration project (SEMDP). Presently, SEMDP is focused on drought and heavy precipitation monitoring over Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Space-based data and derived products form critical part of meteorological services’ operations for weather monitoring; however, satellite products are still not fully utilized for climate applications. Using SEMDP satellite-derived precipitation products, it would be possible to monitor extreme precipitation events with uniform spatial coverage and over various time periods – pentad, weekly, 10 days, monthly and longer time-scales. In this chapter, SEMDP satellite-derived precipitation products over the Asia-Pacific region produced by the Earth Observation Research Center/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (EORC/JAXA) and the Climate Prediction Center/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (CPC/NOAA) are introduced. Case studies for monitoring (i) drought in Australia in July-October 2007 and September 2018 and (ii) heavy precipitation over Australia in December 2010 and Thailand and the Peninsular Malaysia in November-December 2014 which caused widespread flooding are also presented. Satellite observations are compared with in situ data to demonstrate value of satellite-derived estimates of precipitation for drought and heavy rainfall monitoring.
Part of the book: Rainfall