VNP43MA2: VIIRS/NPP BRDF and Albedo Quality at 1km Resolution

NASA/NOAA's Suomi NPP VIIRS VNP43MA2 Version 1 product provided daily global data on Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and Albedo quality at a 1-kilometer resolution. The product was generated using a 16-day rolling window of satellite observations, weighted to the ninth day, and applied the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal kernel-driven BRDF model. It was designed to ensure continuity with NASA's MODIS BRDF/Albedo data suite but has been decommissioned as of July 31, 2025.

Use Cases

• Assessing data quality for BRDF model parameters across nine VIIRS spectral bands and three broadbands.
• Correcting directional reflectance to a common view geometry for consistent surface property analysis.
• Estimating black-sky albedo at any solar illumination angle using provided BRDF model parameters.
• Manually calculating instantaneous blue-sky albedo from the integrated black-sky and white-sky albedo Science Dataset variables.

Strengths

• Provides a specific spatial resolution of 1 kilometer for global land surface analysis.
• Uses a documented, semi-empirical kernel-driven BRDF model (RTLSR) to reconstruct surface anisotropic effects.
• Designed for continuity with the established NASA MODIS BRDF/Albedo product suite.

Limitations

• The dataset is decommissioned (as of July 31, 2025), indicating it is no longer updated or maintained.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2025-02-08 vs. 2026-04-09), creating uncertainty about final metadata changes.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Produced daily from 16 days of VIIRS data aboard the Suomi NPP satellite, using the RTLSR BRDF model.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:16:22.225079

Geography

Global