The remote and cold Antarctic continent presents unique challenges to quantify precipitation rates from space and in situ observations. This has resulted in large uncertainties in current estimates. In this study, we quantify annual precipitation rates over seven Antarctic basins using a novel mass budget (MB) approach, by building on the recent Landsat based estimate of ice discharge and changes in total water storage from GRACE. The MB precipitation rates are compared with those from CloudSat, GPCP, the Arthern precipitation climatology, the GPM constellation sensors, a few popular reanalysis products, and a regional climate model for two periods: 2007-2010 and 2013-2015. The new estimates are bounded by CloudSat precipitation rates with and without adjustment for the unmeasured near surface precipitation. GPM products significantly underestimate Antarctic precipitation rate, but capture spatial variability that is valuable for bias-adjustment. We find variable performance between products at basin scale, suggesting that an in-depth regional study of precipitation rates is necessary.

中文翻译：

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南极洲积雪积雪从冰流和空间重力观测比较分析

遥远而寒冷的南极大陆对从空间和现场观测量化降水率提出了独特的挑战。这导致目前的估计存在很大的不确定性。在这项研究中，我们基于最近基于 Landsat 对 GRACE 冰排放和总蓄水量变化的估计，使用新的质量预算 (MB) 方法量化了七个南极盆地的年降水率。将 MB 降水率与 CloudSat、GPCP、Arthern 降水气候学、GPM 星座传感器、一些流行的再分析产品和两个时期的区域气候模型进行比较：2007-2010 和 2013-2015。新的估计值受 CloudSat 降水率的限制，无论是否对未测量的近地表降水进行调整。GPM 产品显着低估了南极降水率，但捕获了对偏差调整有价值的空间变异性。我们发现流域尺度产品之间的性能存在差异，这表明有必要对降水率进行深入的区域研究。