A double-smoothing algorithm for integrating satellite precipitation products in areas with sparsely distributed in situ networks

Abstract

The spatial distribution of automatic weather stations in regions of western China (e.g., Tibet and southern Xingjiang) is relatively sparse. Due to the considerable spatial variability of precipitation, estimations of rainfall that are interpolated in these areas exhibit considerable uncertainty based on the current observational networks. In this paper, a new statistical method for estimating precipitation is introduced that integrates satellite products and in situ observation data. This method calculates the differences between raster data and point data based on the theory of data assimilation. In regions in which the spatial distribution of automatic weather stations is sparse, a nonparametric kernel-smoothing method is adopted to process the discontinuous data through correction and spatial interpolation. A comparative analysis of the fusion method based on the double-smoothing algorithm proposed here indicated that the method performed better than those used in previous studies based on the average deviation, root mean square error, and correlation coefficient values. Our results indicate that the proposed method is more rational and effective in terms of both the efficiency coefficient and the spatial distribution of the deviations.