VIIRS/NPP Surface Reflectance: Daily Global Land Data at 500m and 1km

Twelve spectral bands provide daily land surface reflectance data from the Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS sensor. The dataset includes three imagery bands at a nominal 500-meter resolution and nine moderate resolution bands at a nominal 1-kilometer resolution, corrected for atmospheric gases and aerosols. These reflectance layers serve as primary input for generating downstream VIIRS land products.

Use Cases

• Land cover and vegetation monitoring based on corrected surface reflectance bands.
• Atmospheric correction validation using the provided aerosol quantity flag and quality layers.
• Input data generation for higher-level VIIRS land products like vegetation indices.
• Bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) studies using the sensor and solar angle layers.

Strengths

• Provides data at two specific spatial resolutions: ~463 meters (500m nominal) and ~926 meters (1km nominal).
• Includes twelve spectral bands and ancillary data layers like sensor and solar angles.
• Atmospherically corrected for gases and aerosols, improving surface signal accuracy.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable across all sources.
• The 'last updated' field shows a future date (2026-03-12), indicating a potential metadata conflict or error.
• Documentation of known issues requires external reference to a separate website.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Collection Method

Derived from Suomi NPP VIIRS sensor data, processed through the VNP09GA Version 2 algorithm.

Time Range

Covers the entire Suomi NPP mission (explicit start/end dates not provided).

Freshness

2026-03-12 20:27:42.604284 (Note: This is a future date, suggesting a metadata anomaly)

Geography

Global coverage.