Accurate estimates of precipitation are fundamental for hydrometeorological and ecohydrological studies, but are more difficult in high mountainous areas because of the high elevation and complex terrain. This study compares and evaluates two kinds of precipitation datasets, the reanalysis product downscaled by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) output, and the satellite product, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) product, as well as their bias-corrected datasets in the Middle Qilian Mountain in Northwest China. Results show that the WRF output with finer resolution performs well in both estimating precipitation and hydrological simulation, while the TMPA product is unreliable in high mountainous areas. Moreover, bias-corrected WRF output also performs better than bias-corrected TMPA product. Combined with the previous studies, atmospheric reanalysis datasets are more suitable than the satellite products in high mountainous areas. Climate is more important than altitude for the ‘falseAlarms’ events of the TRMM product. Designed to focus on the tropical areas, the TMPA product mistakes certain meteorological situations for precipitation in subhumid and semiarid areas, thus causing significant ‘falseAlarms’ events and leading to significant overestimations and unreliable performance. Simple linear bias correction method, only removing systematical errors, can significantly improves the accuracy of both the WRF output and the TMPA product in arid high mountainous areas with data scarcity. Evaluated by hydrological simulations, the bias-corrected WRF output is more reliable than the gauge dataset. Thus, data merging of the WRF output and gauge observations would provide more reliable precipitation estimations in arid high mountainous areas.

准确估算降水量是水文气象和生态水文研究的基础，但由于海拔高且地形复杂，在高山地区更加困难。这项研究比较并评估了两种降水数据集，一种是天气研究和预报（WRF）输出缩减的再分析产品，另一种是卫星产品热带雨量测量任务（TRMM）多卫星降水分析（TMPA）产品，以及他们在西北祁连山中段的偏斜校正数据集。结果表明，较高分辨率的WRF输出在降水估算和水文模拟中均表现出色，而TMPA产品在高山地区则不可靠。而且，偏置校正的WRF输出也比偏置校正的TMPA产品性能更好。与先前的研究相结合，大气再分析数据集比高山山区的卫星产品更适合。对于“TRMM产品的falseAlarms事件。TMPA产品专门针对热带地区而设计，将某些气象情况误认为是半湿润和半干旱地区的降水，从而导致发生重大的“ falseAlarms ”事件，并导致严重的高估和不可靠的表现。简单的线性偏差校正方法，仅消除系统误差，可以显着提高在数据匮乏的干旱山区的WRF输出和TMPA产品的精度。通过水文模拟评估，经过偏差校正的WRF输出比仪表数据集更可靠。因此，将WRF输出和仪表观测值进行的数据合并将在干旱的高山地区提供更可靠的降水估计。