Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

VIIRS/NPP BRDF/Albedo Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Ref Daily L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V001

Metadata Updated: September 18, 2025

The VNP43IA4 Version 1 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the VNP43IA4 and VJ143IA4 Version 2 data products.The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nadir Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR) Version 1 product provides NBAR estimates at 500 meter (m) resolution. The VNP43IA4 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 view angle effects are removed from the directional reflectances, resulting in a stable and consistent NBAR product. The VNP43 data products are designed to promote the continuity of NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) BRDF/Albedo data product suite. The VNP43 algorithm uses the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal (RTLSR) semi-empirical kernel-driven BRDF model, with the three kernel weights from VNP43IA1 to reconstruct surface anisotropic effects, correcting the directional reflectance to a common view geometry (VNP43IA4), while also computing integrated black-sky albedo (BSA) at local solar noon and white-sky albedo (WSA) (VNP43IA3). 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 VNP43IA4 product includes six SDS layers for BRDF/Albedo mandatory quality and nadir reflectance for VIIRS imagery bands I1, I2, and I3. A low-resolution browse image is also available showing NBAR bands I1, I2, and I1 as an RGB (red, green, blue) image in JPEG format.Known Issues The abnormally high activation of the high aerosol flag in the Collection 1 (C1) VNP09 product has impacted downstream products. The VNP43 BRDF/Albedo/NBAR product is affected by reducing the number of otherwise acceptable observations used as input to characterize surface anisotropy. This effect (most obvious over arid bright surfaces) results in a reduced number of high quality full BRDF model inversions. Therefore, users should be aware that bright arid surfaces (normally associated with high quality BRDF/Albedo/NBAR retrievals) are likely to be somewhat represented by lower quality results in C1. VNP09 has been corrected for Collection 2 (C2). Therefore, users should avoid substantive use of C1 VNP43 over arid regions (and wait for C2 products). In any event, users are always strongly encouraged to download and use the extensive QA data provided in VNP43[I-M]A2, in addition to the briefer mandatory QA provided as part of the VNP43[I-M]A1, 3 and 4 products. For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025
Publisher LP DAAC;NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/LandSIPS;UMASS-B/SFE
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP43IA4.001
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
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 5a152288-8150-4d18-b482-63265d6fadbe
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash df466582180c468e40ce3625a19c010f7035d7e6542a6564e8f67f60a639b86b
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2012-01-17/2012-01-17

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.