VIIRS Surface Reflectance: Daily Global Climate Grid

NOAA-20 VIIRS sensor data provides daily land surface reflectance estimates for twelve spectral bands at a 0.05-degree (~5.6 km) resolution, corrected for atmospheric gases and aerosols. This Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) product includes five brightness temperature bands and auxiliary information layers for use in climate simulation models. Version 2 features improved calibration, geolocation accuracy, and aerosol flagging over bright surfaces.

Use Cases

• Monitoring continental-scale vegetation health based on corrected surface reflectance bands.
• Assimilating land surface conditions into climate models using the formatted Climate Modeling Grid.
• Analyzing temporal trends in surface brightness temperature from the M12-M16 bands.
• Correcting downstream products like vegetation indices using the improved aerosol quantity flag.

Strengths

• Data is atmospherically corrected for molecular gases and aerosols, enhancing surface signal accuracy.
• Version 2 includes specific improvements to calibration, geolocation, and aerosol flagging over deserts and tropical vegetation.
• Product is formatted as a Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) specifically for integration into climate simulation models.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable across all sources.
• License is listed as 'other-license-specified' without details on reuse restrictions.
• A known issues page is referenced, indicating potential data quality concerns requiring user review.

Provenance

Source

NOAA-20 VIIRS sensor, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Weighted average of the best quality observations from satellite overpasses.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global