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VIIRS/JPSS1 BRDF/Albedo Quality Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V002

Metadata Updated: March 12, 2026

The NOAA-20 Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and Albedo Quality (VJ143MA2) Version 2 product provides BRDF and Albedo quality at 1 kilometer (km) resolution. The VJ143MA2 product is produced daily using 16 days of VIIRS data and is weighted temporally to the ninth day, which is reflected in the file name. The VJ143MA2 product gives information regarding band quality and days of valid observation within a 16-day period for nine VIIRS moderate resolution bands and three broadbands. The VJ143 data products are designed to promote the continuity of NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) BRDF/Albedo data product suite. The VJ143 algorithm uses the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal (RTLSR) semi-empirical kernel-driven BRDF model, with the three kernel weights from VJ143MA1 to reconstruct surface anisotropic effects, correcting the directional reflectance to a common view geometry (VJ143MA4), while also computing integrated black-sky albedo (BSA) at local solar noon and white-sky albedo (WSA) (VJ143MA3). Researchers can use the BRDF model parameters with a simple polynomial, to obtain black-sky albedo at any solar illumination angle. Likewise, both the BSA and WSA Science Dataset (SDS) layers can be used with a simple polynomial, to manually estimate instantaneous actual albedo (blue-sky albedo). Additional details regarding the methodology are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP43MA2 data product provides a total of 23 SDS layers including: BRDF/Albedo band quality and days of valid observation within a 16-day period for VIIRS moderate resolution bands M1-M5, M7-M8, and M10-M11; as well as land water type class flag; snow BRDF albedo class flag; local solar noon; albedo uncertainty and the platform name. Known Issues * Known issues for VIIRS BRDF/Albedo data products can be found on the VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website. Improvements/Changes from Previous Version * Improved calibration algorithm and coefficients for entire NOAA-20 mission. * Improved geolocation accuracy and applied updates to fix outliers around maneuver periods. * Corrected the aerosol quantity flag (low, average, high) mainly over brighter surfaces in the mid- to high-latitudes such as desert and tropical vegetation areas. This has an impact on the retrieval of other downstream data products such as VNP13 Vegetation Indices and VNP43 Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)/Albedo. * Improved cloud mask input product for corrections along coastlines and artifacts from use of coarse resolution climatology data. * Replaced the land/water mask input product with the eight-class land/water mask from the VNP03 geolocation product that better aligns with MODIS. * More details can be found in this VIIRS Land V2 Changes document.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2026
Publisher LP DAAC;UMASS-B/SFE;NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/LandSIPS
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/VIIRS/VJ143MA2.002
Data Last Modified 2026-03-10
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 5eff0fcd-68d2-4ef2-be19-57d48b974b1d
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Old Spatial {"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90},"CARTESIAN"
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash b3da30ef37ed2fd0cd2f7b5233c2ef6b33d50830e0e0d3efdff1924abb7cab74
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2018-01-01/2026-03-05

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