Precipitation amount from IMERG

Topics

• Access
• Description
• Parameters
• Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution
• Data quality
• Contact person
• References
• Data citation and License

Access

RESTRICTED: This link to the data set is only available for a restricted user group.  The data set is only accessible in CEN/MPI net or accessible from external nets with a customer account.  Please contact ICDC if you would like to access this data from outside the network.

• View IMERG data from 2020 on at LAS
• Access IMERG data from 2020 on via OPeNDAP
• Data access via file system: /data/icdc/atmosphere/imerg

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Description

IMERG is the acronym for "Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM" - here used to generate the Version V07 Level-3 half-hourly precipitation amount data set: GPM_3IMERGHH.07.

Precipitation estimates from the various precipitation-relevant satellite passive microwave (PMW) sensors comprising the GPM constellation are computed using the Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF V07), then gridded, intercalibrated to the GPM Combined Ku Radar-Radiometer Algorithm (CORRA V07) product, and merged into half-hourly 0.1°x0.1° (roughly 10x10 km) fields. For detailed information we refer to the various technical documents found in the references section of this page.

Last update of data set at ICDC: April 30, 2025

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Parameters

Parameters of the IMERG data set

Name	Unit
amount of precipitation	mm / hour
fraction of liquid precipitation	%
quality index	-
Random retrieval error	mm / hour

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Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

• 2000-06-01 to 2024-11-30
• every half hour (48 / day)

Coverage and spatial resolution:

• Global
• Spatial resolution: 0.1 ° x 0.1 °, Cartesian grid
• Longitude: -179.95 ° E to 179.95 ° E
• Geographic latitude: -89.95 ° N to 89.95 ° N
• Dimension: 3600 columns x 1800 rows
• Height: Terrain-Following

Format:

• NetCDF

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Data quality

The data set offered here contains two measures for the uncertainty. One is a quality flag which essentially indicates the consistency of the precipitation values with one another (over time and space and between the input data) , see documentation about the quality index in the references. The other is random errors in the final product calibrated using precipitation station data (see the "GES DISC Dataset: GPM IMERG Final Precipitation" in references). In general we refer the the various documents found in the references section of this page; please pay particular not to the imerg-v07-release-notes document.

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Contact

G. Huffman et al.
NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission Team
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), Greenbelt, MD, U.S.
email: gsfc-help-disc (at) lists.nasa.gov

Stefan Kern
University of Hamburg
email: stefan.kern (at) uni-hamburg.de

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References

Literature:

• IMERG V07 Release Notes (pdf, not barrier free)
• IMERG V07 Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) (pdf, not barrier free)
• IMERG V07 combined algorithm ATBD (pdf, not barrier free)
• IMERG V07 final technical documentation (pdf, not barrier free)
• IMERG V07 GPROF release notes (pdf, not barrier free)
• Tan, J., et al., IMERG V06: Changes to the Morphing Algorithm. J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol., 36(12), 2471-2482, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0114.1.
• Joyce, R. J., et al., Kalman Filter Based CMORPH, J. Hydrometeor., 12(6), 1547-1563, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-11-022.1.
• Hong, Y., et al., Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Imagery Using an Artificial Neural Network Cloud Classification System, J. Appl. Meteorol., 43(12), 1834-1853, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAM2173.1.
• Huffman, G. J., et al., The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis: Quasi-Global, Multi-Year, Combined-Sensor Precipitation Estimates at Fine Scale, J. Hydrometeor., 8(1), 38-55, 2007, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM560.1
• Behrangi, A., and Y. Wen, On the spatial and temporal sampling erors of remotely sensed precipitation products, Remote Sensing, 9(11), 1127, 2017, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs09111127.
• Tang, G., et al., Have satellite precipitation products improved over the last two decades - A comprehensive comparison of GPM IMERG with nine satellite and reanalysis data sets, Rem. Sens. Environ., 240, 111697, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.111697.
• Navarro, A., et al., Assessment of IMERG precipitation estimates over Europe, Remote Sensing, 11(21), 2470, 2019, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11212470.

Websites:

• GES DISC Dataset: GPM IMERG Final Precipitation L3 Half Hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V07 (GPM_3IMERGHH), https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GPM_3IMERGHH_07/summary 

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Data citation, License, and Acknowledgments

Please cite the data as follows:

Huffman, G.J., E.F. Stocker, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, Jackson Tan (2025), GPM IMERG Final Precipitation L3 Half Hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V07, Greenbelt, MD, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), https://doi.org/10.5067/GPM/IMERG/3B-HH/07 [last access: April 18, 2025], distributed in netCDF file format by ICDC, CEN, University of Hamburg.

and with the following acknowledgments:

Thanks to ICDC, CEN, University of Hamburg for data support.

License

Please see GES DISC dataset website for license informations.

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