Comparison of the Minimum Bounding Rectangle and Minimum Circumscribed Ellipse of Rain Cells from TRMM

作     者：Hongke CAI Yaqin MAO Xuanhao ZHU Yunfei FU Renjun ZHOU Hongke CAI;Yaqin MAO;Xuanhao ZHU;Yunfei FU;Renjun ZHOU

作者机构：Plateau Atmospheric and Environment Laboratory of Sichuan ProvinceSchool of Atmospheric SciencesChengdu University of Information TechnologyChengdu 610225China School of Earth and Space SciencesUniversity of Science and Technology of ChinaHefei 230026China Center for Atmospheric OpticsAnhui Institute of Optics and Fine MechanicsChinese Academy of SciencesHefei 230031China 

出 版 物：《Advances in Atmospheric Sciences》 (大气科学进展（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2024年第41卷第3期

页      面：391-406页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 070601[理学-气象学] 0706[理学-大气科学] 

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U20A2097,42075087, 91837310) the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2021YFC3000902) 

主　　题：TRMM minimum bounding rectangle minimum circumscribed ellipse 

摘      要：Based on the TRMM dataset, this paper compares the applicability of the improved MCE(minimum circumscribed ellipse), MBR(minimum bounding rectangle), and DIA(direct indexing area) methods for rain cell fitting. These three methods can reflect the geometric characteristics of clouds and apply geometric parameters to estimate the real dimensions of rain cells. The MCE method shows a major advantage in identifying the circumference of rain cells. The circumference of rain cells identified by MCE in most samples is smaller than that identified by DIA and MBR, and more similar to the observed rain cells. The area of rain cells identified by MBR is relatively robust. For rain cells composed of many pixels(N 20), the overall performance is better than that of MCE, but the contribution of MBR to the best identification results,which have the shortest circumference and the smallest area, is less than that of MCE. The DIA method is best suited to small rain cells with a circumference of less than 100 km and an area of less than 120 km^(2), but the overall performance is mediocre. The MCE method tends to achieve the highest success at any angle, whereas there are fewer “best identificationresults from DIA or MBR and more of the worst ones in the along-track direction and cross-track direction. Through this comprehensive comparison, we conclude that MCE can obtain the best fitting results with the shortest circumference and the smallest area on behalf of the high filling effect for all sizes of rain cells.