VJ143IA2: Daily BRDF and Albedo Quality from VIIRS at 500m

500-meter resolution data from the NOAA-20 VIIRS sensor provides 11 Science Dataset layers for assessing Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function and Albedo quality. The product is generated daily using a 16-day rolling window of observations, weighted to the ninth day, and employs the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal kernel-driven model to correct surface reflectance anisotropy. It is designed to ensure continuity with NASA's MODIS BRDF/Albedo product suite for monitoring land surface radiative properties.

Use Cases

• Correcting directional reflectance to a common view geometry based on the BRDF model parameters.
• Estimating black-sky albedo at any solar illumination angle using the provided kernel weights and a polynomial.
• Calculating instantaneous actual (blue-sky) albedo by combining the black-sky and white-sky albedo SDS layers.
• Assessing data quality and inversion success for VIIRS imagery bands I1, I2, and I3 over a 16-day period.
• Classifying surface conditions for analysis using the land water type and snow BRDF albedo class flags.

Strengths

• Provides a specific 500-meter spatial resolution for detailed surface property mapping.
• Contains 11 distinct Science Dataset layers, including quality flags and uncertainty metrics.
• Follows a documented, peer-reviewed methodology using the RTLSR BRDF model, as described in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document.
• Is part of a multi-platform, operational data product suite designed for long-term continuity with MODIS.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• Documentation references known issues but the provided descriptions are truncated, indicating incomplete information.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Processed from 16 days of Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor data on the NOAA-20 satellite.

Time Range

Daily production with a 16-day temporal compositing window.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:05:56.563738

Geography

Global coverage on a 500m SIN Grid.