VIIRS Daily Global 1km BRDF and Albedo Quality Data

VJ143MA2N is a near real-time, daily Level 3 product providing Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and albedo quality data at a 1 km resolution globally. It is generated by the LANCEMODIS organization using a 16-day rolling window of VIIRS sensor data and the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal kernel-driven model. The dataset contains 23 Science Dataset layers for monitoring surface radiative properties.

Use Cases

• Modeling land surface energy balance by analyzing black-sky albedo (BSA) and white-sky albedo (WSA) layers.
• Correcting satellite imagery for directional effects using BRDF model parameters from the kernel weights.
• Assessing data quality for surface reflectance studies via the BRDF/Albedo band quality flags for bands M1-M5, M7-M8, and M10-M11.
• Classifying surface conditions for analysis using the land water type and snow BRDF albedo class flags.
• Estimating instantaneous actual (blue-sky) albedo by applying a polynomial to the provided BSA and WSA Science Dataset layers.

Strengths

• Provides 23 distinct Science Dataset layers for detailed analysis of surface properties.
• Uses a sophisticated, documented RTLSR semi-empirical BRDF model for atmospheric correction.
• Offers daily near real-time global coverage at a consistent 1 km spatial resolution.
• Synthesizes observations from a 16-day period to improve data validity for each daily product.

Limitations

• Conflicting license information: 'other-license-specified' on some platforms versus 'None' on others.
• Specific column names, row counts, and total dataset size are not provided by any source.
• The algorithm's reliance on a 16-day window may smooth over very rapid surface changes.

Provenance

Source

LANCEMODIS organization, utilizing data from the VIIRS/JPSS1 satellite sensor.

Collection Method

Produced daily using a 16-day rolling window of VIIRS data and the RTLSR BRDF model, as detailed in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document.

Time Range

Daily coverage, near real-time.

Freshness

2026-03-12 20:03:51.011458

Geography

Global coverage on a 1 km SIN Grid.