Long-term measurements of rainfall accumulation are now available from several of the deep ocean TAO moorings. A comparison of these data show agreement between the acoustic measurement (ARG), rainfall accumulation from co-located R.M. Young (RMY) rain gauges and TRMM satellite rainfall accumulation estimates (Product 3B42).

The data are from the ITCZ in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean at 8°N, 10°N and 12°N, 95°W for the years 2000 and 2001. Note that the RMY rain gauge is subject to fouling and theft. The RMY rain gauge was stolen from 8°N in July 2000. The RMY gauges worked poorly at the beginning of the rainy season at 10°N and 12°N in 2000, and didn’t work well at 12°N in 2001. The satellite rainfall estimate is a combined infrared/microwave product and has a very different sampling strategy (spatial averaging with poor temporal sampling) than the in situ rain gauges (ARG and RMY), and so only seasonal agreement should be expected. In these figures, the shading indicates times when there is excessive acoustical noise on the mooring and no ARG measurement is available.