VNP43C4: Daily Nadir-Adjusted Reflectance for Climate Models

NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP VIIRS data provides daily, global land surface reflectance modeled as if viewed from directly overhead at local solar noon. The product uses a 16-day moving window of observations and the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal BRDF model to correct for view-angle effects across 10 spectral bands. This 0.05-degree Climate Modeling Grid dataset is designed specifically for use in global climate simulation models.

Use Cases

• Monitoring land surface albedo changes for climate models based on the BRDF-adjusted reflectance layers.
• Analyzing vegetation dynamics using the nadir-adjusted reflectance in the red and near-infrared spectral bands (e.g., M5, M7).
• Assessing data quality for snow cover studies using the ancillary snow cover percentage layer.
• Incorporating uncertainty estimates into model inputs using the provided ancillary uncertainty layers.

Strengths

• Provides global coverage at a consistent 0.05-degree (approx. 5.6 km) resolution suitable for climate models.
• Includes 10 spectral bands of Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR) plus 5 ancillary layers for quality assessment.
• Data is processed daily using a 16-day moving window to emphasize data quality for the target day.

Limitations

• The VNP43C4 Version 1 product was decommissioned on July 31, 2025, indicating this is a legacy dataset.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided across any source.
• Relies on the quality of underlying 30-arc-second pixel inputs, which requires user assessment of the provided quality layers.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi NPP satellite using the VNP43 algorithm and the RTLSR BRDF model.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:43:31.153094

Geography

Global