VNP21A1D: VIIRS Land Surface Temperature Daily Grid

The VNP21A1D VIIRS Version 1 product provides daily, global land surface temperature and emissivity data at a 1-kilometer resolution. It is compiled from daytime observations from the Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS instrument, using an algorithm compatible with MODIS products for continuity. This Version 1 product was decommissioned on April 8, 2025, and users are directed to Version 2 data products.

Use Cases

• Monitoring urban heat islands based on daily 1km gridded temperature data.
• Assessing agricultural drought stress using daytime land surface temperature averages.
• Validating climate models with satellite-derived temperature data compatible with MODIS.
• Studying land surface emissivity for radiative property analysis.
• Tracking diurnal temperature cycles from daily compiled observations.

Strengths

• Provides continuity with MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms, ensuring compatibility with long-term Earth Observation System data.
• Derived from a rigorous Level 2 Gridded (L2G) process that averages multiple cloud-free observations per cell for accuracy.
• Offers global coverage at a 1-kilometer spatial resolution, resampled from native 750-meter VIIRS data.

Limitations

• The dataset is a decommissioned Version 1 product, superseded by Version 2 with better calibration.
• Specific column names and dataset size/row counts are not provided in the metadata.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further detail.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and NOAA Suomi NPP satellite.

Collection Method

Algorithmically compiled daily from VIIRS Level 2 Gridded intermediate products mapped onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid.

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates 2026-04-09, but the product itself was decommissioned in 2025.

Geography

Global