Precipitation Retrieval Accuracies of the Tropics Constellation of Passive Microwave Cubesats

This paper evaluates the performance of the passive microwave spectrometer to be launched aboard the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) for retrieving surface precipitation and hydrometeor water paths. The retrieval algorithms employ neural networks trained and evaluated using the physical reference model NCEP/WRF/TBSCAT/F( $\lambda$ ). Results show that TROPICS retrieved surface precipitation rates and hydrometeor water paths agree well with WRF truth. The accuracies of TROPICS retrieved daily, weekly, and monthly surface precipitation amounts are close to those of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). The TROPICS constellation will provide useful precipitation retrievals at unprecedented 30-minute temporal resolution.