Inference of Spatial Scaling Properties of Rainfall: Impact of Radar Rainfall Estimation Uncertainties

The existence of relationships able to connect quantities across different spatio-temporal scales represents an attractive way of describing and characterizing the high spatial and temporal variability of the rainfall process. Several studies investigated the scaling properties of spatial rainfall, and in most of the cases, these analyses were performed using radar-based estimates of rainfall, which are notoriously affected by systematic and random uncertainties. The impact of these errors on the estimated scaling properties of spatial rainfall still remains an open question. By using an empirically based radar rainfall error model, the authors explore this issue by generating ensembles of probable true rainfall fields, conditioned on radar rainfall maps. Fifteen rainfall events over Oklahoma are analyzed, and it is shown how the presence of radar rainfall errors results in biased estimates of the scaling properties of rainfall.