Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Atmospheric Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/atmos

An exploratory investigation of an adaptive neuro fuzzy

inference system (ANFIS) for estimating hydrometeors
from TRMM/TMI in synergy with TRMM/PR
Tanvir Islam a,b,c,⁎, Prashant K. Srivastava c,d,e, Miguel A. Rico-Ramirez c, Qiang Dai c,
Dawei Han c, Manika Gupta f
a
NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research, College Park, MD, USA
b
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
c
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
d
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
e
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
f
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The authors have investigated an adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for the
Received 19 December 2013 estimation of hydrometeors from the TRMM microwave imager (TMI). The proposed
Received in revised form 17 March 2014 algorithm, named as Hydro-Rain algorithm, is developed in synergy with the TRMM
Accepted 18 March 2014 precipitation radar (PR) observed hydrometeor information. The method retrieves rain rates
Available online 27 March 2014
by exploiting the synergistic relations between the TMI and PR observations in twofold steps.
First, the fundamental hydrometeor parameters, liquid water path (LWP) and ice water path
Keywords: (IWP), are estimated from the TMI brightness temperatures. Next, the rain rates are estimated
Liquid water contents from the retrieved hydrometeor parameters (LWP and IWP). A comparison of the
Ice water contents
hydrometeor retrievals by the Hydro-Rain algorithm is done with the TRMM PR 2A25 and
Global precipitation measurement (GPM)
GPROF 2A12 algorithms. The results reveal that the Hydro-Rain algorithm has good skills in
Rain rate retrieval
Passive microwave radiometry estimating hydrometeor paths LWP and IWP, as well as surface rain rate. An examination of
Precipitation radar the Hydro-Rain algorithm is also conducted on a super typhoon case, in which the Hydro-Rain
has shown very good performance in reproducing the typhoon field. Nevertheless, the passive
microwave based estimate of hydrometeors appears to suffer in high rain rate regimes, and as
the rain rate increases, the discrepancies with hydrometeor estimates tend to increase as well.
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction radiation and retaining the temperature to comfort level. The

The earth is surrounded by the “atmosphere”, which is a
blanket of air containing various gasses that act as a protective
shield for the earth's life to survive by absorbing ultraviolet
⁎ Corresponding author at: NOAA/NESDIS/STAR, NOAA Center for Weather
and Climate Prediction, 5830 University Research Ct., College Park, MD
20740-3818, USA.
E-mail addresses: tanvir.islam@noaa.gov, tanvir.islam@msn.com
(T. Islam).
atmosphere is mainly composed of nitrogen and oxygen gasses,
covering 99% of the atmospheric constituents. However, the
remaining 1%, a mixture of carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone
and other gasses, is responsible for producing hydrometeors. In
fact, the hydrometeor related parameters (e.g. cloud, ice, and
rain water contents) are one of the most critical drivers for
atmospheric radiative effects (Brandau et al., 2010; Du et al.,
2011; Shen et al., 2011; Zhou and Ran, 2012). The accurate
simulation and prediction of geophysical parameters through
numerical weather prediction and climate models also require

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2014.03.019
0169-8095/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
58 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68
accurate information of hydrometeor variables (Hazra et al.,
2013; Michel et al., 2011; Van Weverberg et al., 2012).
The active microwave sensors such as radars are capable of
estimating hydrometeors more accurately than passive micro-
wave sensors. In particular, the active sensors at microwave
(and millimeter wave) frequencies measure the radar reflectiv-
ity factor Z, which is proportional to the sixth moment of
raindrop size distribution (DSD) providing that the raindrops
are small compared to the instrument's wavelength (Islam et al.,
2012b; Islam et al., 2012d). This Z factor can be related to
the liquid/ice water contents in each atmospheric layer, and
ultimately can provide vertically integrated liquid water path
(LWP) and ice water path (IWP) information. In contrary, the
passive microwave (PMW) sensors measure the integrated
effects of liquid and ice in the atmospheric column through
brightness temperature observations from emission and scat-
tering channels (Islam et al., 2012a; Spencer et al., 1989; You
and Liu, 2012). Therefore, accurate hydrometeor profiling in a
vertical column is fairly limited. Further, this could lead to
inaccurate estimate of LWP/IWP, and integrally, total water
path (TWP) information. Commonly, PMW measurements can
penetrate the thin clouds, but not the thick clouds. This may lead
to the underestimation of column water contents (Crewell et al.,
2009; Saavedra et al., 2012).
In this study, we stress out the aforementioned limita-
tions and propose an empirical approach, as an alternative to
traditional hydrometeor estimation from PMW observations.
The algorithm, hereinafter named as Hydro-Rain algorithm, is
designed to produce active sensor like retrieval of hydrome-
teor variables LWP and IWP, and in turn, the hydrometeor
variables are used to produce instantaneous rain rates. The
Hydro-Rain algorithm is based on an adaptive neuro fuzzy
inference system (ANFIS). The active microwave sensor used
in this work is the TRMM precipitation radar (PR) and the
passive microwave sensor is the TRMM microwave imager
(TMI). The key advantage is that both active and passive
sensors are in the same platform, measuring coincident
observations. Therefore, development of an ANFIS model for
the TMI observations in synergy with the PR measurements
has been possible.
The remainder of this manuscript is organized as follows.
Section 2 describes the datasets used in this study. In
Section 3, the limitations of PMW sensors for hydrometeors
estimate are discussed. The Hydro-Rain algorithm is intro-
duced in Section 4 which exploits the retrieval of hydrome-
teors and rain rate information. The validation results are
outlined in Section 5. Conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
2. Datasets
The major datasets used in this study are the TRMM/TMI
calibrated brightness temperatures (TBs) and TRMM/PR hydro-
meteor data, obtained from NASA Distributed Active Archive
Center (DAAC). The TRMM microwave imager (TMI) is a passive
microwave system that measures upwelling microwave radi-
ances at five frequencies between 19 and 85 GHz. Each
frequency is associated with one vertically polarized and one
horizontally polarized channel, with the exception of 21.3 GHz
that has vertically polarized channel only. The TRMM PR is a
nadir looking active sensor operated at 13.8 GHz frequency
(Ku-band). The scanning is done with cross-track strategy. It
scans ±17° of vertical at intervals of 0.35° providing data over a
swath 215 km wide at the earth's surface with a horizontal
footprint of about 4 km and a vertical resolution of 250 m at
nadir. Detail description of the TRMM sensor package address-
ing the technical specifications of the TMI and PR instruments
can be found in Kummerow et al. (1998).
In this work, the raw calibrated brightness temperatures
are taken from TRMM 1B11 product. The PR hydrometeor
variables are derived from the TRMM 2A25 product. In
deriving the hydrometeor variables LWP and IWP, the
methodology mentioned in Masunaga et al. (2002) and
Iguchi et al. (2000) has been employed. The Z at each PR
cell has been converted to liquid water content and ice water
content based on the Z–M relationship:
b
M ¼ aZ ð1Þ
where, M is the water/ice content for a given range in gm−3
and Z is the attenuation corrected reflectivity factor in mm6m−3.
The coefficients a and b are dependent upon particle temper-
ature and the type of precipitation (e.g. stratiform/convective).
In 2A25, the coefficients are stored for different nodes based on
the scenarios for a particular profile (e.g. with/without bright
band). Fig. 1 represents a typical schematic illustration of the
nodes for which the coefficients are given. In order to compute
the water/ice content for each range gate, the coefficients
between the nodes are obtained through linear interpolation.
Once, the liquid and ice water contents are computed, the LWP
and IWP are obtained by simply vertically integrating the liquid
water and ice water contents, respectively. For LWP, the water
content from surface to freezing level height, and for IWP, the
ice content from freezing level height to the top of the storm are
considered. Besides, the surface rain rate has been taken from
the TRMM 2A25 product. Note that the surface rain rate in 2A25
is defined as the rain rate at the lowest point in the clutter-free
region (Islam et al., 2012c).
In addition, for the sake of comparison, hydrometeor
estimates produced by the TMI GPROF algorithm are used,
taken from TRMM 2A12 product. In GPROF, the hydrometeor
related variables are retrieved by relating the radiometric
brightness temperatures to the cloud resolving model produc-
ing an offline database of hydrometeor parameters by using a
Bayesian inversion scheme. Similar strategy is conducted for
retrieving near surface rain rates. Note that, the 2A12 product
contains cloud water path (CWP), rain water path (RWP) and
ice water path (IWP). Therefore, the LWP is computed by simply
adding the CWP and RWP for a particular bin.
3. Limitations of PMW estimate
The accuracy of the PMW instrument based hydrometeor
estimates is somewhat limited, mainly due to the fact that PMW
instruments cannot sense the full vertical structure of a storm,
thus providing macro-physical information of hydrometeors.
Furthermore, they have coarser measurement resolution in
comparison to active sensors. Typically, the integrated water
amounts measured by PMW instruments are often less than
physical amounts, or those measured by active sensors. This can
be confirmed from Fig. 2, in which the scatterplots between
LWP and IWP are shown for PR 2A25 and TMI 2A12 based
retrievals. This particular figure is constructed from one orbit
 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68 59

Fig. 1. The definition of nodes A to D in the TRMM PR 2A25 algorithm (with and without bright band scenarios).

sample data. As such, both sensors sample the same storm, so, illustrate the bivariate kernel density estimate of LWP and IWP
theoretically, the LWP/IWP ranges should be similar, if not the in logarithmic form. The kernel is assumed to be Gaussian.
same. Nevertheless, as the figure shows, the dynamic ranges Mostly, the PR LWP distribution lies in high dynamic ranges
significantly vary between two sensors. In Fig. 2, the left panels while for TMI, estimates stay in low dynamic ranges. The right

Fig. 2. (Left) The bivariate kernel density estimate of LWP and IWP (in log scales) for the PR 2A25 and TMI 2A12 out-comes. The kernel is assumed to be Gaussian.
(Right) The scatterplots between LWP and IWP (in natural scales) for the PR 2A25 and TMI 2A12 are shown.
60
panels show the scatterplots in physical space, and as can be
seen that up to 25 mm (LWP) magnitude of integrated
quantities are estimated from the PR. In contrary, the TMI
estimated LWP is less than 5 mm. One should remember that
the TRMM PR has a sensitivity of 17 dBZ. This implies that a
significant portion of ice particles cannot be detected by the PR.
Nevertheless, the LWP estimate from the PR can be considered
as fairly accurate. Therefore, the advantage from an empirical
algorithm in synergy with the PR will mostly be gained in LWP,
thus in TWP, and ultimately in rain rate retrieval.
Fig. 3 represents the Spearman correlation coefficients as
a function of nine TMI channels for the LWP and IWP
quantities over the ocean and land surfaces. The Spearman
correlation coefficient is defined as:
1 X
n−1 i¼1 i
ρxy ¼ vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u u
u
u 1 X
n n
ðxi −xÞ  t
t ðy −yÞ
n−1 i¼1
where, x and y represent the ranks of data pairs, x and y
denote the means of x and y ranks, respectively, and n is the
number of samples. The key advantage of the Spearman
correlation coefficient over traditional Pearson correlation
coefficient is that possible non-linear relations can be
reflected in this measure. It ranges between − 1 and 1. The
sign of ρxy expresses the direction of association between x
and y. Fig. 3 is prepared from the collocated TMI brightness
temperatures and PR hydrometeor outputs. Note that the
collocations are made to the high resolution PR grid. Clearly,
the ocean water path is positively associated with the TBs,
with the exception of the 85 GHz channels (8 and 9), while
the land water path is negatively associated with the TBs.
Remarkably, the low frequency emission channels are poorly
correlated to hydrometeor contents over land. Despite, the
emission channels are rather correlated to ocean water
contents.
0.6
Spearman Correlation Coeifficient
0.4
0.2
0 indicating the firing strength of each rule calculated with a
−0.2
−0.4
−0.6 Ocean LWP
Land LWP
Ocean IWP
Land IWP
−0.8
1 2
Fig. 3. The Spearman correlation coefficients for the LWP and IWP at nine
TMI channels. The nine TMI channels represent 10V, 10H, 19V, 19H, 21V,
37V, 37H, 85V, and 85H GHz channels, respectively.
T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68
Overall, one can argue that the monotonic correlations
between the integrated hydrometeor amounts and individual
channels are somehow moderate. Nevertheless, the combi-
nation of all nine channels should enhance the information
contents needed to estimate PR like hydrometeors. In the
next section, we describe the development of the Hydro-Rain
algorithm using TMI only information.
4. Hydro-Rain algorithm
The Hydro-Rain algorithm is based on an adaptive neuro
fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), by which the TMI calibrated
TBs are converted to PR like atmospheric column integrated
quantities (LWP and IWP). In turn, the water paths are
converted to near surface rain rate from the retrieved inte-
n grated water content information.
ðx −xÞðyi −yÞ The ANFIS is a multi-layer adaptive network based fuzzy
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð2Þ Sugeno model that can facilitate learning and adaption of
u 1 X
complex dynamical system introduced by Jang (1993). It
2 2
integrates the principles of neural networks and fuzzy logic
n−1 i¼1 i
consisting of a number of nodes connected through directional
links. The ANFIS is composed of five layers, namely, fuzzification
layer, rule layer, normalization layer, defuzzification layer and
an output layer. Fig. 4 represents a typical architecture of an
ANFIS model. In this system, x and y are the inputs, Ai and Bi are
the fuzzy sets and fi is the output produced by the fuzzy rule.
In the first layer, every node is an adaptive node. The
outputs of this layer are the fuzzy membership grade of the
inputs, given by:
1
Oi ¼ μ Ai ðxÞ ð3Þ
1
Oi ¼ μ Bi ðyÞ ð4Þ
where, μ is the weight obtained through fuzzy membership
function. The μAi and μBi can adopt any given membership
functions. In this study, a Gaussian membership function is
assumed:
   
x−bi 2
μ Ai ðxÞ ¼ exp − ð5Þ
ai
where, ai and bi are the premise parameters of the member-
ship functions.
In the second layer, every node is a fixed node labeled Π,
simple multiplier:
2
Oi ¼ wi ¼ μ Ai ðxÞμ Bi ðyÞ: ð6Þ
In the third layer, every node is a fixed node labeled N,
indicating the normalized firing strength of each rule from
the previous layer:
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 3 wi
TMI Channel # Oi ¼ wi ¼ : ð7Þ
w1 þ w2
In the fourth layer, every node is an adaptive node,
indicating the contribution of the ith rule through the
 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68 61

Fig. 4. Typical architecture of ANFIS.

product of the normalized firing strength and a first order the Hydro-Rain algorithm, the TMI TBs and the PR hydrome-
Sugeno model: teor quantities (LWP, IWP and surface rain rate) data are
collocated to a single footprint domain. Subsequently, for the
4 retrieval of LWP and IWP (left side in the figure), ocean and
Oi ¼ wi f i ¼ wi ðpi x þ qi y þ r t Þ ð8Þ
land surface databases are prepared separately, by which the
ANFIS is trained. During training course, the subtractive
where, pi, qi, and ri are the consequent parameters.
clustering method is employed. This method is the extension
In the fifth layer, only one node is present, which is a fixed
of the mountain clustering method proposed by Chiu (1994).
node labeled Σ. This node indicates the overall outputs by
The foremost advantage of this method is that it can reduce
performing the summation of all incoming signals:
the computational complexity of the model during training.
X The data points are clustered in an unsupervised way by
wi f i
5
X measuring the potential of data points in the feature space.
Oi ¼ wi f i ¼ X
i
: ð9Þ
wi The assumption is that each data point is a potential cluster
i center. The data point with the highest potential, based on
density of surrounding points, is selected as the first cluster
Fig. 5 shows the schematic view of the development of the center, and remaining potential of data points are destroyed.
Hydro-Rain algorithm with ANFIS. It is also worth mention- Consequent cluster centers are found by revising the
ing that the TMI and PR have different scanning strategy potential of data points. This cluster method determines the
resulting in different resolutions. Furthermore, the TMI's low number of fuzzy rules and premise fuzzy membership
frequency channels also differ in resolution to the high functions for the ANFIS model. For the sake of clarity, the
frequency channels. Therefore, during the development of membership functions on nine input channels representing

Fig. 5. Flowchart illustrating the development of the Hydro-Rain algorithm using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS).
62 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68

the clusters identified by subtractive clustering method for
LWP and IWP are plotted in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. The
top panels are given for ocean database and bottom panels
are given for the land database. As can be seen, three clusters
are generated for ocean case and two clusters for land case.
For the development of rain rate retrieval model (right
side in Fig. 5), the grid partition method is employed. The
reason for using grid partition is that, the number of features
in this case is only two (LWP and IWP). As such we can afford
to train the ANFIS with reasonable computational powers
using grid partition method. In other words, the curse of
dimensions should not be introduced in this case. The grid
partition method divides the input space into rectangular
subspaces using axis-paralleled partition with given number
of membership functions and their types in each dimension.
For reference, the membership functions of LWP and IWP
variables for rain rate estimate using the grid partition
method are displayed in Fig. 8.
Following the determination of fuzzy rules and membership
functions, the fuzzy sets and parameters are calculated in least
square manner. In this study, a total of ~250,000 vectors from
several orbital samples from a wide range of meteorological
events are used for training the ANFIS models. Table 1 tabulates
the statistical measures obtained during the training procedure.
The quantification of the algorithm performance is done
through various quantitative metrics, including, mean bias
(MB), normalized mean bias (NMB), fractional standard error
(FSE), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error
(RMSE), correlation coefficient (r), and standard deviation
(STD). Apparently, the Hydro-Rain algorithm is well trained, as
the table indicates. The calculated correlation coefficients are
in the range 0.61–0.68 for hydrometeor paths (FSE, 0.69
to 1.75 mm). For rain rate, the correlation is fairly higher
(r = 0.92, FSE = 0.69 mm), as the TRMM PR surface rain rate is
highly correlated with the integrated hydrometeor contents,
especially LWP.
5. Validation results
Two types of validations are presented hereafter in order
to evaluate the performance of the Hydro-Rain algorithm.
First, the validation is performed from a quantitative point of
view by applying the Hydro-Rain algorithm to TMI TBs, and
comparing the Hydro-Rain retrieval to PR outputs. Second
validation is based on a case study from a qualitative point of
view, in which, the super typhoon Haiyan is examined with
the Hydro-Rain algorithm.
5.1. Quantitative validation
For the sake of quantitative validation, the Hydro-Rain
algorithm is applied to the TMI brightness temperature
measurements collocated to the PR footprint resolution. The
PR retrieval has been considered as the “truth”. Since the TMI
datasets are collocated to the PR footprint, point-to-point
comparison between two different fields has been possible.

1 1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0 0
180 220 260 100 200 200 240 280 150 200 250 200 250
in1 in2 in3 in4 in5
1 1 1 1

Cluster 1
0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 Cluster 2
Cluster 3
0 0 0 0
220 240 260 280 150 200 250 150 200 250 150 200 250
in6 in7 in8 in9
1 1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0 0
200 250 300 150 200 250 250 300 180 220 260 250 300
in1 in2 in3 in4 in5
1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 Cluster 1

Cluster 2

0 0 0 0
220 240 260 280 180 220 260 150 200 250 150 200 250
in6 in7 in8 in9

Fig. 6. The membership functions of the nine input TMI channels for the LWP, (top nine panels) over the ocean surface, (bottom nine panels) over the land
surface. The membership functions are generated through sub clustering method.
 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68 63

1 1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0 0
170 210 250 290 100 200 200 240 280 150 200 250 200 250
in1 in2 in3 in4 in5
1 1 1 1

Cluster 1
0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 Cluster 2
Cluster 3
0 0 0 0
220 240 260 280 150 200 250 150 200 250 150 200 250
in6 in7 in8 in9
1 1 1 1 1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0 0 0 0 0
220 260 300 150 200 250 220 260 300 180 220 260 250 300
in1 in2 in3 in4 in5
1 1 1 1

Cluster 1
0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Cluster 2

0 0 0 0
200 220 240 260 280 180 220 280 150 200 250 150 200 250
in6 in7 in8 in9

Fig. 7. Same as Fig. 6, but for IWP.

in1mf1 in1mf2 in1mf3

1
Degree of membership

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

5 10 15 20 25
input LWP

in2mf1 in2mf2 in2mf3

1
Degree of membership

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

5 10 15 20 25
input IWP

Fig. 8. The membership functions of the LWP and IWP for the rain rate retrievals. The membership functions are generated through grid partition method.
64 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68

Table 1 can be seen that the Hydro-Rain retrieval agrees reasonably well
The statistical measures of the hydrometeor estimates by the Hydro-Rain with the PR retrieval. Of course, the performance of the
algorithm obtained from the training datasets.
Hydro-Rain has been somewhat degraded from the training
MB NMB FSE MAE RMSE r STD statistics, as expected. The Hydro-Rain retrieval is better
correlated to the PR over the ocean than over land. Nevertheless,
LWP Ocean 0.01 0.02 1.25 0.53 1.10 0.65 1.10
Land 0.01 0.01 1.45 0.58 1.26 0.61 1.26 it is apparent that the PMW based Hydro-Rain algorithm suffers
IWP Ocean 0.00 0.02 1.16 0.16 0.30 0.68 0.30 significantly to produce good estimate of hydrometeor contents
Land 0.00 0.01 1.75 0.23 0.61 0.64 0.61 in high rain rate regimes (higher LWP and IWP values).
Rain rate Ocean & land 0.00 0.00 0.69 1.08 2.63 0.92 2.63
Nonetheless, overall, the error metrics are reasonably small.
Over the ocean, the FSE is calculated as 1.35 mm (correlation
0.57) for LWP and 1.31 mm (correlation 0.63) for IWP. More
Note that, the validation database has been created by com- importantly, the Hydro-Rain retrieval agrees much better with
prising a large number of randomly selected TMI measurements the observations from TRMM PR, compared to the results from
obtained from several orbital samples in different meteorolog- TRMM 2A12 algorithm. For instance, the reported FSE over the
ical conditions during the year of 2013 (~50 orbits). Of course, ocean is much higher than the Hydro-Rain algorithm, revealing
the validation database is independent from the training as 1.49 and 2.86 mm for LWP and IWP, respectively.
database, which used for the development of the ANFIS models. The validation results can be also visualized in terms of
Fig. 9 provides the scattergrams of the Hydro-Rain LWP and IWP empirical cumulative distribution histograms. In Fig. 10, we
outcomes against the PR retrieval over ocean and land surfaces. show the empirical cumulative distribution histogram of
The corresponding statistical metrics are tabulated in Table 2. It hydrometeor estimates by the Hydro-Rain algorithm in

Fig. 9. Scatterplots of Hydro-Rain vs PR 2A25 derived hydrometeor estimates over the ocean (left) and the land (right) surfaces.

Table 2
The statistical measures of the LWP and IWP estimates by the Hydro-Rain and 2A12 algorithms obtained from the validation datasets.

Mean bias NMB FSE MAE RMSE r STD

Hydro-Rain LWP Ocean −0.15 −0.14 1.35 0.70 1.47 0.57 1.47
Land −0.02 −0.03 1.55 0.61 1.32 0.49 1.32
IWP Ocean 0.01 0.02 1.31 0.16 0.32 0.63 0.32
Land 0.03 0.09 1.80 0.22 0.54 0.54 0.54
2A12 LWP Ocean −0.33 −0.30 1.49 0.73 1.64 0.42 1.61
IWP Ocean 0.61 2.55 2.86 0.65 0.92 0.53 0.69
 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68 65

Ocean Land
1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

Ocean Hydro−Rain LWP

0.2 Ocean PR 2A25 LWP 0.2 Land Hydro−Rain LWP
Ocean TMI 2A12 LWP Land PR 2A25 LWP
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

Ocean Hydro−Rain IWP

0.2 0.2 Land Hydro−Rain IWP
Ocean PR 2A25 IWP
Ocean TMI 2A12 IWP Land PR 2A25 IWP
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

Fig. 10. The empirical cumulative distribution of the LWP and IWP estimates by different algorithms.

comparison with the TRMM PR. The histograms demonstrate
that the Hydro-Rain estimate is in good agreement with the
TRMM PR, although, it overestimates the LWP retrieval in low
LWP regime (b1.5 mm), but underestimates in high LWP
regime (N 1.5 mm). Same holds for the IWP. Nevertheless,
clearly, the Hydro-Rain agrees better with the PR than the
2A12 algorithm.
In order to understand the performance of Hydro-Rain in
different rain rate regimes, we construct the mean ocean
surface hydrometeor estimate as a function of TRMM PR rain

25
Hydro−Rain
20 PR 2A25
TMI 2A12
LWP (mm)

15

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Rain Rate (mm/h)
5
Hydro−Rain
4 PR 2A25
TMI 2A12
3
IWP (mm)

−1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Rain Rate (mm/h)

Fig. 11. Mean hydrometeor estimates (LWP and IWP) as a function of PR averaged rain rate using three different types of algorithms (Hydro-Rain, PR, and 2A12).
The error bars represent the ±1 standard deviations.
66 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68

Fig. 12. Scatterplots of Hydro-Rain vs PR 2A25 derived rain rate estimates over the ocean (top) and the land (bottom) surfaces.

rate for three different types of algorithms (Hydro-Rain, PR, 5.2. Qualitative validation (typhoon case)
and 2A12). The error bars represent the ± 1 standard
deviations (See Fig. 11.) The figure demonstrates that the The algorithm is now tested qualitatively on super typhoon
integrated hydrometeor contents (LWP and IWP) are in Haiyan that occurred on the 7th of November over the
increasing trend as the rain rate increases. Especially, to a Philippines during 2013 Pacific typhoon season. It is the
certain degree, there is a cubic growth in PR LWP against the second-deadliest Philippine typhoon on record, originated
rain rate observations. Nonetheless, there are clear difficul- from an area of low pressure, and then developed into a tropical
ties in estimating hydrometeor contents by the passive depression. The system has subsequently transformed into
microwave based algorithms in high rain rate regimes. As category 5 hurricane pouring rain over the region. Exceptional
the rain rate increases, the inconsistencies between PMW high wind speed has been reported during the typhoon event.
and PR estimates also rise. Taking PR as a reference, both The qualitative evaluation is displayed in Fig. 13. This
Hydro-Rain and 2A12 underestimate the LWP amounts in particular snapshot is taken from orbit no 91024.7 on the 7th
high rain rate regimes, to a significant extent. For IWP of November 2013. For the sake of comparison, the typhoon
estimate, overestimation is seen by the 2A12 algorithm, but fields as seen by the TMI 2A12 and PR are also incorporated in
underestimation is observed by the Hydro-Rain algorithm in the figure. It is quite encouraging to see that the Hydro-Rain
higher rain rate regimes. Overall, the results clearly highlight algorithm has been able to detect and produce the body of
the limitation of PMW based retrieval in higher rain rate the Typhoon reasonably well. The agreement of Hydro-Rain
regimes in comparison with the PR. Nevertheless, one should derived rain rate with the TRMM PR rain product confirms
agree that Hydro-Rain algorithm agrees relatively better with the robustness of the algorithm, even in hurricane/typhoon
the TRMM PR than the 2A12 algorithm. case. Indeed, as the figure shows, the Hydro-Rain induces a
In Fig. 12, we demonstrate the rain rate validation for the
Hydro-Rain algorithm. The Hydro-Rain rain rate retrieval is
solely based on the information of LWP and IWP, and does not
use any other information (e.g. TBs or auxiliary datasets). Hence, Table 3
The statistical measures of the rain rate estimates by the Hydro-Rain and
the validation of rain rate should also be considered as an
2A12 algorithms obtained from the validation datasets.
indirect validation of the hydrometeor contents (LWP and IWP).
Remarkably, the Hydro-Rain retrieved rain rate is in good Mean NMB FSE MAE RMSE r STD
agreement with the PR retrieval. The statistical measures are bias
reported in Table 3. The calculated FSE over ocean and land Hydro-Rain Ocean −0.42 −0.11 1.37 2.47 5.09 0.56 5.08
surface types are 1.37 mm and 1.67 mm respectively for the Land −0.21 −0.07 1.67 2.23 5.10 0.43 5.10
Hydro-Rain algorithm. The statistical scores are somewhat 2A12 Ocean −0.93 −0.30 1.59 2.54 5.39 0.51 5.70
Land −0.30 −0.12 1.81 2.88 5.86 0.40 5.89
lower for the TMI 2A12.
 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68
well-organized and varied distribution of rain rates within
the typhoon field.
6. Concluding remarks
An empirically based hydrometeor estimation (LWP, IWP,
and rain rate) algorithm, named as Hydro-Rain, is proposed
for the TRMM microwave imager (TMI). The Hydro-Rain
algorithm is based on the adaptive neuro fuzzy inference
system (ANFIS). The TRMM PR hydrometeor information has
been taken as the “reference” in order to develop as well as
validate the Hydro-Rain algorithm.
It should be noted that the TRMM PR hydrometeor infor-
mation is based on power law relationship between Z and
the water content assuming a drop size distribution model.
However, radar reflectivity factor is related to the sixth moment
of DSD, while the water content is related to the third moment
of DSD. Therefore, there will always be some uncertainties
associated with hydrometeor estimate from the PR itself. Hence,
the purpose of this study was not to provide “actual physical”
hydrometeor estimate from the TMI, but to put forward an
approach that would make the retrieved variables consistent
with the PR like estimate. Arguably, in-situ measurements from
balloon and aircraft platforms could provide more detailed
information of hydrometeor profiles. Therefore, in the future,
it might be interesting to compare the PR and Hydro-Rain
Fig. 13. The rain rate imagery of the super typhoon Haiyan on the 7th of November 2013 as derived by the TMI Hydro-Rain, the TMI 2A12, and the PR 2A25
algorithms.
67
retrieved hydrometeor estimates with the in situ measure-
ments, in order to understand the agreement and/or differences
between them.
Nevertheless, there are certainly several advantages in
using the Hydro-Rain algorithm towards the next generation
PMW era. For instance, the GPM will have a constellation of
PMW instruments, and the Hydro-Rain can easily be adapted
to those instruments. On the other hand, passive microwave
instruments cover large swath width, as such; a better spatial
coverage is achieved than active instruments. Consequently,
better information of hydrometeors and rain rate can be
gained on outer swaths, where precipitation radar (PR) and
dual frequency precipitation radar (DPR) do not have any
coverage. More importantly, during the GPM era, the DPR
will provide more accurate hydrometeor information with
enhanced sensitivity. Therefore, there is a scope to improve
the hydrometeor estimates, by re-training the Hydro-Rain
algorithm, when DPR will be on-board.
Acknowledgments
The TRMM data used in this effort were acquired as part of
the NASA's Earth–Sun System Division and archived and
distributed by the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and
Information Services Center (DISC) Distributed Active Ar-
chive Center (DAAC). The views expressed here are those of
68 T. Islam et al. / Atmospheric Research 145–146 (2014) 57–68
the authors solely and do not constitute a statement of policy,
decision, or position on behalf of NOAA/NASA or the authors'
affiliated institutions.
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