Characteristics of Precipitation Regimes during First Global Atmospheric Research Project Global Experiments.

For this thesis precipitation data are obtained from the GWE Global Weather Experiment FGGE First GARP Global Atmospheric Research Project Global Experiment data sets observed from December 1978 through November 1979. The FGGE precipitation data are compared to climatological data and other fields compiled or calculated from the FGGE data. These other fields are the U and V wind components, heating fields, velocity potentials, and stream functions. The precipitation data are edited and put into a useful global format. The 1979 data are compared to climatology. The precipitation fields generally agree with more extensive climatologies, though some important regional differences are noted. Large scale overturning circulations are colocated with extensive areas of precipitation in the tropics. The analysis of rainfall is adversely affected by the sparse data density over the oceans and in remote areas. In the future, the precipitation data should be combined with and scrutinized against satellite data, especially over the oceans.