MCD43D51: Daily Global Black-Sky Albedo at 1km Resolution

Daily global land surface albedo data produced by NASA using 16 days of combined Terra and Aqua MODIS satellite observations. The dataset provides black-sky albedo for the shortwave broadband at a 30 arc second (approximately 1,000 meter) resolution, temporally weighted to the ninth day of each 16-day period. It is part of the MCD43D BRDF/Albedo product suite designed for use in climate simulation models.

Use Cases

• Calibrating and validating climate simulation models based on global land surface albedo.
• Analyzing trends in surface reflectance and energy absorption based on daily, 1km-resolution data.
• Studying land cover changes and their radiative impact using the shortwave broadband albedo metric.
• Incorporating directional hemispherical reflectance (black-sky albedo) into surface energy budget calculations.

Strengths

• Daily temporal resolution using a 16-day observation window from two MODIS sensors (Terra and Aqua).
• Global spatial coverage at a consistent 30 arc second (1km) Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) resolution.
• Version 6.1 incorporates specific calibration improvements, including RVS, optical crosstalk, and polarization corrections.
• Includes band-specific quality flags to help users isolate the highest quality full inversion results.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Each product file contains just one data layer, which may complicate multi-band analysis workflows.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale statistical modeling.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Produced daily using 16 days of Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data.

Time Range

Daily production, with data temporally weighted to the ninth day of a 16-day period.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:48:28.623954; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global