VNP43MA4N: Daily Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance at 1 km

Eighteen Science Dataset layers provide Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR) estimates for nine VIIRS moderate bands at 1-kilometer resolution. The product is generated daily using a 16-day rolling window of VIIRS/NPP data and employs the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal BRDF model to correct for view angle effects. Researchers can use the provided BRDF parameters and albedo layers to model surface anisotropy and calculate black-sky, white-sky, and instantaneous blue-sky albedo.

Use Cases

• Monitoring land surface albedo changes based on the integrated black-sky and white-sky albedo layers.
• Analyzing vegetation phenology using corrected reflectance time series from the nine VIIRS moderate bands.
• Modeling surface anisotropic effects for climate studies using the provided BRDF kernel weights.
• Calculating instantaneous actual albedo (blue-sky albedo) for energy balance models using the polynomial method described.

Strengths

• Provides daily, near-real-time global coverage at 1 km resolution.
• Corrects for view-angle effects using a semi-empirical BRDF model, resulting in stable NBAR estimates.
• Includes 18 science data layers covering reflectance, quality, and albedo parameters.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as column names, row count, and exact file size are not provided in any source.
• The dataset's temporal coverage is not explicitly stated, only its daily production cadence.
• License is specified only as 'other-license-specified', requiring users to seek external clarification.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Processed from VIIRS/NPP satellite sensor data using the VNP43 algorithm.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 according to datagov entries.

Geography

Global coverage on a 1 km SIN Grid.