Retrieval of rainfall from the MADRAS microwave imager of Megha-Tropiques

Microwave radiation with the inherent advantage of its ability to partially penetrate clouds is ideally suited for remote measurements of rainfall, especially over the oceanic regions. The retrieval problem is of great practical interest, as precipitation over the oceans has to be necessarily remotely sensed. More importantly, precipitation is also a crucial input in many weather and climate models. IIT Madras has developed over the last ten years an in-house polarized microwave radiation transfer model (Micro- Tropiques) along with candidate retrieval strategies for the retrieval of rainfall for possible use in the multi frequency (18.7 GHz, 23.8 GHz, 36.5 GHz, 89 GHz and 157 GHz) Microwave Analysis and Detection of Rain and Atmospheric Structures (MADRAS) microwave imager of the Indo-French mission Megha-Tropiques (MT) due to be launched shortly. This lecture will chronicle the efforts taken towards the development of robust rainfall retrieval techniques from the MT data. © 2011 IEEE.