VJ143D79: White-Sky Albedo for the VIIRS Day/Night Band

NOAA-20 VIIRS VJ143D79 provides daily global white-sky albedo measurements for the Day/Night Band at 0.7 μm. This dataset is produced using 16 days of data, temporally weighted to the ninth day, and is gridded at a 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution on a Climate Modeling Grid. It is part of a larger BRDF/Albedo product suite designed for climate simulation models.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy balance in climate simulations based on the Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) structure.
• Analyzing temporal changes in nighttime surface reflectance using the Day/Night Band (DNB) albedo values.
• Studying land surface anisotropy by comparing white-sky albedo (WSA) with black-sky albedo (BSA) from the broader VJ143D product suite.

Strengths

• Provides global coverage on a Climate Modeling Grid, suitable for climate simulations.
• Offers daily temporal resolution, synthesized from 16 days of VIIRS observations for stability.
• Includes albedo for the unique VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB), which is not part of the standard moderate resolution band set.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• Each product file contains only one data layer due to large file sizes, which may complicate multi-band analysis.
• Known issues exist, requiring users to consult an external website for complete information.

Provenance

Source

LPCLOUD (NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the NOAA-20 VIIRS instrument, processed using a BRDF/Albedo algorithm.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global