VNP43D40: VIIRS/NPP Daily BRDF and Albedo Quality at 1km

NASA/NOAA's Suomi NPP VIIRS VNP43D40 product provides daily, global BRDF and albedo quality information at a 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution. It is generated using a 16-day rolling window of data, temporally weighted to the ninth day, and formatted on a Climate Modeling Grid for use in simulations. The dataset contains quality flags for VIIRS moderate resolution bands M1-M5, M7, M8, M10, M11, and the Day/Night Band.

Use Cases

• Assessing pixel reliability for downstream albedo products based on BRDF/Albedo quality flags.
• Filtering low-quality observations in climate model inputs using the per-band quality information.
• Monitoring temporal changes in surface reflectance quality over the global Climate Modeling Grid.
• Validating snow cover and aerosol retrieval algorithms using the associated snow status and aerosol flag corrections.

Strengths

• Provides daily global coverage at a consistent 1km resolution on a Climate Modeling Grid.
• Incorporates improvements from a specific version update, including better calibration coefficients and geolocation accuracy.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and official status.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• Relies on a 16-day composite for daily output, which may smooth over rapid surface changes.
• Known issues exist and require external consultation of a dedicated quality assessment website.

Provenance

Source

NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the VIIRS instrument, processed using a documented algorithm (VNP43MA2).

Time Range

Covers the entire Suomi NPP mission period; specific start date not provided.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global coverage.