VJ121_NRT: VIIRS Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity

VJ121_NRT is a near real-time satellite product providing land surface temperature and emissivity data. It uses a physics-based algorithm to retrieve these parameters simultaneously for three thermal infrared bands at a spatial resolution of 750 meters. The algorithm is based on the ASTER TES method and employs radiative transfer simulations for atmospheric correction.

Use Cases

• Monitoring urban heat islands based on high-resolution (750m) land surface temperature data.
• Studying surface energy balance and climate models using retrieved emissivity values.
• Assessing agricultural water stress and drought conditions from thermal time-series data.
• Validating land surface models using physics-based, dynamically retrieved temperature and emissivity.

Strengths

• Provides data at a high spatial resolution of 750 meters at nadir.
• Uses a sophisticated physics-based algorithm (VJ21/ASTER TES) for simultaneous retrieval of temperature and emissivity.
• Offers near real-time (NRT) availability for timely monitoring applications.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; column names, dataset size, and row counts are unknown across all sources.
• The 'last updated' date is provided (2026-04-09) but may not reflect the actual data freshness.
• Documentation is referenced but not directly integrated into the dataset metadata.

Provenance

Source

LANCEMODIS

Collection Method

Data is gathered by the VIIRS instrument on the JPSS1 satellite using a physics-based retrieval algorithm.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:47:54.053325

Geography

Global swath coverage from satellite observations.