A hybrid Bayesian-SVD based method to detect false alarms in PERSIANN precipitation estimation product using related physical parameters

Incorrect estimation of rainfall occurrence, so called False Alarm (FA) is one of the major sources of bias error of satellite based precipitation estimation products and may even cause lots of problems during the bias reduction and calibration processes. In this paper, a hybrid statistical method is introduced to detect FA events of PERSIANN dataset over Urmia Lake basin in northwest of Iran. The main FA detection model is based on Bayesian theorem at which four predictor parameters including PERSIANN rainfall estimations, brightness temperature (Tb), precipitable water (PW) and near surface air temperature (Tair) is considered as its input dataset. In order to decrease the dimensions of input dataset by summarizing their most important modes of variability and correlations to the reference dataset, a technique named singular value decomposition (SVD) is used. The application of Bayesian-SVD method in FA detection of Urmia Lake basin resulted in a trade-off between FA detection and Hit events loss. The results show success of proposed method in detecting about 30% of FA events in return for loss of about 12% of Hit events while better capability of this method in cold seasons is observed.