摘要 : A new index assessing the cloud growing rate isdescribed in this paper. It has been designed to be integratedin rainfall estimation procedures. As the highestprecipitation rates occur in growing convective cores,integrating this i... 展开 A new index assessing the cloud growing rate isdescribed in this paper. It has been designed to be integratedin rainfall estimation procedures. As the highestprecipitation rates occur in growing convective cores,integrating this information should enhance theprecipitation estimations. The index computation relies onimage processing methods. It is composed of two steps: firsta watershed segmentation is applied and then an originalheritage process is performed. This second step, which isbased on a simple matrix computation, is adapted to thewatershed algorithm as it mitigates the over-segmentationartefact. This cloud growing rate index is compared with acooling index which is usually computed to help inidentifying raining cells and it is demonstrated to be moreefficient. Moreover a simple integration of this index ina widespread rainfall estimation method leads to animprovement of the diurnal cycle retrieval 收起