VNP43D40: VIIRS BRDF/Albedo Quality Daily Global 1km Grid

VNP43D40 provides daily BRDF and albedo quality information at 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution for the entire globe. The product is generated using a 16-day data window, temporally weighted to the ninth day, and is formatted for the Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) used in climate simulation models. It contains quality flags for VIIRS moderate resolution bands M1-M5, M7, M8, M10, M11, and the Day/Night Band (DNB).

Use Cases

• Assessing input data quality for climate model simulations based on the Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) format.
• Filtering low-quality pixels in land surface anisotropy studies using the BRDF/Albedo quality flags.
• Evaluating observation coverage for surface reflectance time series analysis using the valid observations data layer.
• Investigating known aerosol flag impacts on BRDF model inversions, particularly over arid bright surfaces.

Strengths

• Provides global daily coverage at a consistent 1km spatial resolution.
• Integrates 16 days of observations for temporal stability, weighted to a central date.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and official provenance.

Limitations

• The dataset (Version 1) was officially decommissioned on July 31, 2025, limiting its use for current applications.
• Metadata for columns, row count, and file size is incomplete or 'unknown' across all provided sources.
• A known issue with high aerosol flag activation reduces the number of high-quality full BRDF model inversions.

Provenance

Source

NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP VIIRS instrument, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data processed through the VNP43 algorithm suite.

Time Range

Daily production, using a rolling 16-day input window.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:16:27.511312

Geography

Global