VIIRS VJ143IA3: Daily Surface Albedo at 500m Resolution

NOAA-20 VIIRS VJ143IA3 Version 2 provides daily estimates of land surface albedo at a 500-meter resolution. The product uses 16 days of VIIRS data, weighted to the ninth day, and applies the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal BRDF model to derive black-sky and white-sky albedo values. It is designed to ensure continuity with NASA's MODIS BRDF/Albedo data product suite.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy balance based on daily albedo estimates.
• Monitoring land surface change over time using the 16-day composite temporal weighting.
• Estimating blue-sky (instantaneous) albedo by applying a polynomial to the provided BSA and WSA layers.
• Continuity analysis with historical MODIS BRDF/Albedo data products.

Strengths

• Provides a specific spatial resolution of 500 meters.
• Uses a documented, peer-reviewed algorithm (RTLSR BRDF model) for continuity with MODIS.
• Offers daily temporal coverage using a 16-day composite window.

Limitations

• Metadata on exact row/column count, file size, and specific column names is unavailable across all sources.
• Known issues exist, requiring users to consult an external quality assessment website.
• The 'last updated' date is provided but the initial data collection date or temporal range is not specified.

Provenance

Source

NOAA-20 Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data processed using the VJ143 algorithm.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 according to nasa_earthdata and datagov.

Geography

Global coverage.