VNP43DNBA2: VIIRS Day/Night Band Albedo Quality

Global land surface data provides daily Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and Albedo quality information at a 1-kilometer resolution. The product is derived from 16-day composites of Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band observations, using the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal kernel-driven model to characterize surface anisotropy and support albedo calculations. It is designed to ensure continuity with NASA's MODIS BRDF/Albedo product suite.

Use Cases

• Assessing data quality for albedo retrieval based on the provided BRDF and Albedo quality layers.
• Modeling black-sky albedo at any solar angle using the derived BRDF model parameters.
• Estimating instantaneous blue-sky albedo by combining the black-sky and white-sky albedo Science Dataset layers.
• Analyzing temporal changes in surface reflectance anisotropy over a 16-day composite period.
• Correcting directional reflectance to a standard view geometry for consistent inter-comparison.

Strengths

• Provides a specific 1-kilometer spatial resolution for global land surface analysis.
• Uses a documented, semi-empirical RTLSR BRDF model for anisotropic effect reconstruction.
• Designed for continuity with the established MODIS BRDF/Albedo product lineage.
• Data is produced on a daily basis from a 16-day composite, offering regular temporal coverage.

Limitations

• The Version 1 product was explicitly decommissioned on July 31, 2025, limiting its use for current research.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable across all sources.
• Platforms show conflicting 'last updated' dates (2025-02 08 and 2026-04-09), creating provenance uncertainty.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Algorithmic processing of 16 days of VIIRS DNB observations, weighted to the ninth day.

Time Range

Daily production, but specific historical coverage is not provided.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:13:51.723319

Geography

Global