VNP43D46: Daily Global Land Surface Albedo Quality for VIIRS Band M5

Daily global maps at 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution provide a quality layer for each of the 16 days used in the retrieval of VIIRS band M5 bidirectional reflectance distribution function and albedo data. The product is part of a Climate Modeling Grid suite designed for use in global climate simulation models. Known issues and improvements, such as corrections to aerosol flags impacting downstream vegetation indices, are documented on NASA's Land Quality Assessment website.

Use Cases

• Assessing data quality for climate model inputs based on the 16-day valid observation quality layer.
• Monitoring changes in land surface radiative properties using the daily, temporally-weighted albedo product.
• Validating aerosol retrieval algorithms over bright surfaces like deserts using the improved aerosol quantity flag.
• Improving geolocation accuracy in downstream products like vegetation indices by using the corrected VIIRS data.

Strengths

• Provides a daily, global product at a consistent 30 arc-second resolution.
• Incorporates 16 days of data for temporal stability, weighted to the ninth day.
• Includes documented improvements to calibration, geolocation, and aerosol flagging.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• The dataset's license is specified only as 'other-license-specified' without further detail.

Provenance

Source

NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the VIIRS instrument, processed daily using a 16-day retrieval algorithm.

Time Range

Covers the entire Suomi NPP mission, with daily production.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global coverage.