SMPD: a soil moisture-based precipitation downscaling method  for high-resolution daily satellite precipitation estimation

He, Kunlong; Zhao, Wei; Brocca, Luca; Quintana-Seguí, Pere

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-169-2023

Articles | Volume 27, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-169-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-169-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 27, issue 1

Research article

|

10 Jan 2023

Research article |

| 10 Jan 2023

SMPD: a soil moisture-based precipitation downscaling method for high-resolution daily satellite precipitation estimation

Kunlong He, Wei Zhao, Luca Brocca, and Pere Quintana-Seguí

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Final revised paper (published on 10 Jan 2023)
Preprint (discussion started on 01 Apr 2022)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2022-79', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 May 2022

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2022-79/hess-2022-79-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-79-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', wei zhao, 24 Jun 2022
  
  Dear reviewer:
  
  Thank you very much for your great help on our manuscript. Many thanks are also to the Associate Editor and the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. They are very important and useful to improve our work and brush up the manuscript. According to all the comments, the paper was thoroughly revised. Meanwhile, some errors and deficiencies have been also revised through our self-check process and proofread service. The key changes are marked with red color. The point-to-point responses to all comments and suggestions from the reviewer are listed in the following. We hope these revisions can satisfy your requirements and meet with your approval, and of course, we are more than happy to improve the paper again according to new comments and suggestions they might come.
  Best regards,
  Kunlong He and Wei Zhao
  
  Corresponding author: Wei Zhao Prof. E-mail: zhaow@imde.ac.cn
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-79-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2022-79', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Jun 2022

The authors presented a new method to downscale daily precipitation using the SM2Rain method together with soil moisture data in fine resolution. The design of the whole study is new and the manuscript is well-structured. However, considering the high-quality requirement of HESS, the current version should be revised in several aspects.

1) about the spatial distribution of the parameters of a,b, and c. These three parameters are used in equations 7 and 8. According to my understanding, they were calibrated at 10 km resolution and then applied to 1 km resolution. So, firstly, are these parameters scale-independent? Moreover, are they also temporal-independent?

2) The accuracy of the high-resolution SSM data. The authors are suggested to show the reliability of this new information before downscaling.

3) Validation of precipitation data. Currently, the authors are using pixel-point matching comparison. It is suggested to upscale the point observation of stations to grid scales of 1 km and 10 km. And then comparing the two precipitation data to corresponding ground observation.

4) As my speculation, there are more heavy rainfall (big rain rate values) events in high-resolution precipitation data. However, it is not shown in the histogram of figures 4 and 7. The authors are suggested to check this issue with rain gauge observations.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-79-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', wei zhao, 06 Jul 2022
  
  Dear reviewer:
  
  Thank you very much for your great help on our manuscript. Many thanks are also to the Associate
  
  Editor and the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. They are very important
  
  and useful to improve our work and brush up the manuscript. According to all the comments, the
  
  paper was thoroughly revised. Meanwhile, some errors and deficiencies have been also revised
  
  through our self-check process and proofread service. The key changes are marked with red color.
  
  The point-to-point responses to all comments and suggestions from the reviewer are listed in the
  
  following. We hope these revisions can satisfy your requirements and meet with your approval, and
  
  of course, we are more than happy to improve the paper again according to new comments and
  
  suggestions they might come.
  
  Best regards,
  
  Kunlong He and Wei Zhao
  
  Corresponding author: Wei Zhao
  
  E-mail: zhaow@imde.ac.cn
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-79-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (07 Jul 2022) by Shraddhanand Shukla

AR by wei zhao on behalf of the Authors (09 Jul 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Jul 2022) by Shraddhanand Shukla

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (05 Aug 2022)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (07 Nov 2022)

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (07 Nov 2022) by Shraddhanand Shukla

AR by wei zhao on behalf of the Authors (16 Nov 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Nov 2022) by Shraddhanand Shukla

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (21 Nov 2022)

ED: Publish as is (14 Dec 2022) by Shraddhanand Shukla

AR by wei zhao on behalf of the Authors (18 Dec 2022) Manuscript

Short summary

In this study, we developed a soil moisture-based precipitation downscaling (SMPD) method for spatially downscaling the GPM daily precipitation product by exploiting the connection between surface soil moisture and precipitation according to the soil water balance equation. Based on this physical method, the spatial resolution of the daily precipitation product was downscaled to 1 km and the SMPD method shows good potential for the development of the high-resolution precipitation product.