VNP43D79: White-Sky Albedo for VIIRS Day/Night Band

NASA/NOAA's Suomi NPP VIIRS VNP43D79 product provides daily white-sky albedo for the Day/Night Band at 0.7 μm. It is generated daily using a 16-day temporal composite at 30 arc-second (1,000 meter) resolution on a global Climate Modeling Grid. This dataset is part of the VNP43D BRDF/Albedo product suite designed for climate simulation models.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy balance in climate simulations based on the global Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) coverage.
• Analyzing diurnal and seasonal albedo variations using the Day/Night Band (DNB) specific white-sky albedo values.
• Studying land surface anisotropy and reflectance properties from the BRDF-derived albedo product suite.
• Assessing changes in surface brightness at night or under low-light conditions from the 0.7 μm DNB albedo.

Strengths

• Provides a specific geophysical parameter (white-sky albedo) for a unique sensor band (VIIRS Day/Night Band at 0.7 μm).
• Offers global coverage on a standardized Climate Modeling Grid for direct use in models.
• Has a defined daily production cycle using a 16-day composite for temporal stability.
• Is part of a multi-platform NASA/NOAA operational product suite, indicating institutional support and validation.

Limitations

• Metadata for row count, file size, and specific columns is unavailable across all sources.
• Each file contains only one data layer due to large file size, which may complicate multi-band analysis.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Suomi NPP mission.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the VIIRS instrument, processed through the VNP43D BRDF/Albedo algorithm.

Time Range

Daily production, using a rolling 16-day data composite.

Freshness

2026-03-12 20:30:01.082199

Geography

Global