SM2RAIN-CCI: a new global long-term rainfall data set derived from ESA CCI soil moisture

Abstract. Accurate and long-term rainfall estimates are the main inputs for several applications, from crop modeling to climate analysis. In this study, we present a new rainfall data set (SM2RAIN-CCI) obtained from the inversion of the satellite soil moisture (SM) observations derived from the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) via SM2RAIN (Brocca et al., 2014). Daily rainfall estimates are generated for an 18-year long period (1998–2015), with a spatial sampling of 0.25° on a global scale, and are based on the integration of the ACTIVE and the PASSIVE ESA CCI SM data sets.

The quality of the SM2RAIN-CCI rainfall data set is evaluated by comparing it with two state-of-the-art rainfall satellite products, i.e. the Tropical Measurement Mission Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis 3B42 real-time product (TMPA 3B42RT) and the Climate Prediction Center Morphing Technique (CMORPH), and one modeled data set (ERA-Interim). A quality check is carried out on a global scale at 1° of spatial sampling and 5 days of temporal sampling by comparing these products with the gauge-based Global Precipitation Climatology Centre Full Data Daily (GPCC-FDD) product. SM2RAIN-CCI shows relatively good results in terms of correlation coefficient (median value  >  0.56), root mean square difference (RMSD, median value  <  10.34 mm over 5 days) and bias (median value  <  −14.44 %) during the evaluation period. The validation has been carried out at original resolution (0.25°) over Europe, Australia and five other areas worldwide to test the capabilities of the data set to correctly identify rainfall events under different climate and precipitation regimes.

The SM2RAIN-CCI rainfall data set is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.846259.