VNP43D62: VIIRS Black-Sky Albedo for Band M11 Daily Global Climate Grid

Daily global data at 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution, produced using a 16-day rolling window and temporally weighted to the ninth day. This dataset provides the Black-Sky Albedo (BSA) for the VIIRS M11 band (2.25 μm) as part of the VNP43D BRDF/Albedo product suite, formatted on a Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) for global climate simulation. The product was decommissioned on July 31, 2025, with users directed to newer Version 2 data products.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy balance in climate simulations based on the daily, globally complete Climate Modeling Grid.
• Analyzing temporal trends in land surface reflectance for band M11 (2.25 μm) using the 16-day composite data.
• Comparing black-sky albedo (directional hemispherical reflectance) with white-sky albedo for atmospheric correction studies.
• Incorporating VIIRS-derived albedo into broader land surface models that use the VNP43D product suite.

Strengths

• Provides global spatial coverage on a Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) designed for climate simulation models.
• Offers daily temporal resolution with a consistent 16-day data compositing method, temporally weighted to a central day.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and established use in the scientific community.

Limitations

• The dataset is decommissioned (as of July 31, 2025), indicating it is an outdated version with known issues, such as an abnormally high aerosol flag activation.
• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• Each file contains only one data layer due to large file sizes, which may increase data management complexity for multi-band analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).

Collection Method

Produced daily from satellite observations using Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and Albedo modeling algorithms.

Time Range

Daily production, but specific start and end dates are not provided.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:57:02.787358

Geography

Global coverage.