Daily Blue Sky Albedo for Northern North America from MODIS

February 24, 2000 through April 22, 2017 of daily mean shortwave blue sky albedo data derived from MODIS for Canada and Alaska. This dataset provides 500-meter resolution albedo values under realistic atmospheric conditions, accompanied by quality control flags. It originates from the MCD43A1.006 product and is associated with the ABoVE campaign and a 2019 publication.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in surface reflectivity for climate modeling using daily albedo values.
• Assessing snowmelt timing and duration in alpine tundra and forest ecosystems via the albedo time series.
• Validating land surface models by comparing modeled albedo against these MODIS-derived observations.
• Studying radiative forcing impacts of land cover change in northern latitudes using the quality-controlled data.

Strengths

• Covers a 17-year time series from 2000 to 2017, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Includes quality control flags for each albedo value to aid in data interpretation and filtering.
• Derived from the well-established MODIS MCD43A1 product with a 500-meter spatial resolution.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its recognized importance for earth science.

Limitations

• The exact row count, column names, and dataset size are unspecified across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one lists 2017-04-22, another lists 2026-03-13.
• Spatial extent is defined as northern North America; users must refer to a guide figure for precise boundaries.

Provenance

Source

MODIS MCD43A1.006 BRDF/Albedo Model Parameters dataset.

Collection Method

Derived by calculating daily mean from hourly instantaneous blue sky albedo, weighted by solar insolation.

Time Range

2000-02-24 to 2017-04-22

Freshness

2026-03 13 17:36:51.507852

Geography

Northern North America (Canada and Alaska).