The NOAA-20 Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and Albedo Quality (VJ143IA2) Version 2 product provides BRDF and Albedo quality at 500 meter (m) resolution. The VJ143IA2 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 VJ143IA2 product provides information regarding band quality and days of valid observation within a 16-day period for the VIIRS imagery bands. 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 VJ143IA1 to reconstruct surface anisotropic effects, correcting the directional reflectance to a common view geometry (VJ143IA4), while also computing integrated black-sky albedo (BSA) at local solar noon and white-sky albedo (WSA) (VJ143IA3). 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) variables 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 VJ143IA2 data product provides a total of eleven SDS variables including: BRDF/Albedo band quality (inversion information) and days of valid observation within a 16-day period for VIIRS imagery bands I1, I2, and I3, as well as land water type class flag, snow BRDF albedo class flag, local solar noon, albedo uncertainty and the platform name.
Known Issues
* For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.