THE PROPOSED RESEARCH WILL THUS INTRODUCE A NONLOCAL PARADIGM OF PRECIPITATION RETRIEVAL AND UNCERTAINTY ESTIMATION BY UNDERTAKING TWO MAIN OBJECTIVES: (1) DEVELOP A METHODOLOGY TO CONSTRAIN THE INVERSION AT THE PIXEL LEVEL BY INCORPORATING NEIGHBORING INFORMATION FROM THE SPATIAL PATTERNS AND COVARIATION OF TBS AND BY EXPLICITLY CONSTRAINING THE SPATIAL CONSISTENCY OF THE RETRIEVED PRECIPITATION FIELDS; AND (2) IMPLEMENT THE DEVELOPED METHODOLOGY IN THE CURRENT VERSION OF GPROF AND QUANTIFY THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE RETRIEVALS AND THE SCALE-DEPENDENCE AND SPATIAL CORRELATION OF THE RETRIEVAL ERROR FOR MORE ACCURATE MERGING OF MULTI-SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS. IMPROVED RETRIEVAL ACCURACY AND RESOLUTION ARE EXPECTED TO BETTER CAPTURE EXTREMES FOR HYDROLOGIC AND HAZARD APPLICATIONS.