MCD43A2: Daily Global BRDF/Albedo Quality Data at 500m Resolution

MODIS MCD43A2 Version 6 data provides daily quality information for land surface reflectance and albedo products at a 500-meter resolution. This dataset, produced by NASA using 16 days of Terra and Aqua satellite observations, was decommissioned on July 31, 2023, with users directed to the updated Version 6.1. It contains band-specific quality flags, snow status, and observation counts for seven spectral bands to help isolate the highest quality data for scientific applications.

Use Cases

• Filtering high-quality albedo retrievals based on the band-specific quality flags described in the product.
• Assessing observation coverage and data validity for a 16-day period using the days of valid observation layers.
• Analyzing snow cover impacts on surface reflectance using the snow BRDF albedo information.
• Evaluating model uncertainty in land surface studies using the provided BRDF/Albedo uncertainty data.

Strengths

• Provides daily global coverage at a 500-meter spatial resolution.
• Includes quality information for seven MODIS spectral bands (1-7) as described.
• Data is temporally weighted to represent the ninth day of a 16-day retrieval period.

Limitations

• This Version 6 product has known metadata errors and issues impacting data over bright surfaces, and has been officially decommissioned.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Produced daily using 16 days of Terra and Aqua MODIS satellite data.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:39:55.507246; freshness should be verified as the dataset version is deprecated.

Geography

Global