VNP21IMG_NRT: Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity at 375m

NASA's VIIRS instrument provides land surface temperature and emissivity data at a 375-meter spatial resolution. The VNP21 algorithm dynamically retrieves both parameters using full radiative transfer simulations and an emissivity model based on surface radiance variability. This near real-time product is generated from 6-minute swaths of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite aboard the Suomi NPP satellite.

Use Cases

• Monitoring urban heat islands based on high-resolution (375m) land surface temperature retrievals.
• Improving weather and climate models by assimilating dynamically retrieved spectral emissivity data.
• Studying surface energy balance and evapotranspiration using the temperature-emissivity separation algorithm.
• Detecting thermal anomalies, such as wildfires or volcanic activity, from near real-time 6-minute swath data.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA, a leading space agency, indicating authoritative sourcing.
• Algorithm uses full radiative transfer simulations for atmospheric correction, a sophisticated method.
• Product is available in near real-time, supporting time-sensitive applications.
• Provides both land surface temperature and spectral emissivity at the native 375m pixel resolution.

Limitations

• Key metadata like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all platforms.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• Documentation, while referenced, requires external access to PDFs which may be a barrier.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite, processed with the VNP21 algorithm.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:59:05.131374

Geography

Global land surface coverage from satellite swaths.