Satellite Estimation of Falling Snow: A Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Perspective.

Retrievals of falling snow from space-based observations represent key inputs for understanding and linking Earth's atmospheric, hydrological, and energy cycles. This work quantifies and investigates causes of differences among the first stable falling snow retrieval products from the Global precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite and Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) falling snow product. An important part of this analysis details the challenges associated with comparing the various GPM and snow estimates arising from different snow-rain classification methods, orbits, resolutions, sampling, instrument specifications, and algorithm assumptions.