VIIRS BRDF/Albedo (VNP43)¶

VIIRS BRDF/Albedo Collection 2 (VNP43 Suomi NPP, VJ143 NOAA-20, VJ243 NOAA-21) — the VIIRS continuation of MODIS MCD43, produced daily from a 16-day window

Available

At a glance¶

Note on period: In CMR, VNP43 (Suomi NPP) starts 2012-01-17, VJ143 (NOAA-20) 2018-01-01 and VJ243 (NOAA-21) 2023-02-10 (the CMG products start two to four days later). No new VNP43 data are expected after 2 November 2026, and some gaps from the Suomi NPP anomaly of 10–21 July 2026 may not have been recovered.

Overview¶

NASA's standard VIIRS BRDF/albedo suite applies the same kernel-driven BRDF model (RossThick/LiSparse-Reciprocal) and 16-day, 9th-day-weighted approach as MODIS MCD43 to VIIRS observations so that the MODIS BRDF/albedo record can continue. It provides black-sky and white-sky albedo (A3), nadir BRDF-adjusted reflectance (A4), BRDF model parameters (A1) and quality (A2) at 500 m (I bands), 1 km (M bands), 0.05° and 30 arc-second, as separate products per satellite: VNP43 (Suomi NPP), VJ143 (NOAA-20) and VJ243 (NOAA-21). Collection 2 is a reprocessing with improved calibration over the whole Suomi NPP mission, better geolocation, and improved cloud and land/water masks.

What changes with the successor¶

VIIRS BRDF/Albedo Collection 1 (V001) → VIIRS BRDF/Albedo Collection 2 (V002)¶

Transition: 2024-10

A reprocessing with improved calibration over the whole Suomi NPP mission, better geolocation, and improved cloud and land/water masks. NOAA-20 (VJ143) products first appeared in C2, and NOAA-21 (VJ243) products have since been added. C1 (VNP43 V001) stopped production in early 2025.

Sources: LP DAAC VNP43MA4 V002 collection description (version changes, CMR) · VIIRS Version 2 Albedo, BRDF, and NBAR Tiled Data Products Released (Earthdata) · VIIRS Version 2 Albedo, BRDF, and NBAR CMG Data Products Released (Earthdata)

Available variables¶

Variable names come from the LAADS file specifications for VNP43IA3, VNP43MA3, VNP43C3, VNP43IA4, VNP43MA4 and VNP43MA1 and the LP DAAC product pages (Collection 1; the V002 catalog layer lists for VNP43IA1, MA1, IA4 and MA4 are the same) and match the layer counts in the Collection 2 descriptions (9 for IA3, 36 for MA3, 31 for C3). Albedo is INT16 with scale_factor 0.001 (valid range 0–1000) and fill value 32767. Files are HDF-EOS5 (HDF5); check the group path in your downloaded files.

instantaneous mean accumulated maximum minimum static — instantaneous: value at the time stamp · mean/accumulated/maximum/minimum: over the indicated interval · static: does not change with time

Albedo 1 km (VNP43MA3 / VJ143MA3 / VJ243MA3)¶

Albedo 500 m (VNP43IA3 / VJ143IA3 / VJ243IA3)¶

Albedo 0.05° CMG (VNP43C3 / VJ143C3 / VJ243C3)¶

NBAR and BRDF parameters (IA4, MA4 / IA1, MA1)¶

The full variable list is in the official documentation.

How to get the data¶

• NASA Earthdata Search (LP DAAC, Earthdata Cloud) — Web search and download / earthaccess (HDF-EOS5)
  • Short names combine the satellite prefix (VNP43, VJ143, VJ243) with the product (IA1–IA4, MA1–MA4, C1–C4, D, DNBA1–4); the version is 002. A free Earthdata Login is required. Suomi NPP (VNP43) will have no new data after 2 November 2026, so for long records download VJ143 and VJ243 as well.
• NASA AppEEARS — Point and area extraction with reprojection (GeoTIFF, NetCDF4)
  • Since March 2025 (AppEEARS 3.76) it supports 16 Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS BRDF/Albedo V2 products at 500 m and 1 km.
• LP DAAC product page (VNP43MA3 V002) — Documentation, layer tables, DOI

Example code¶

Downloads one day of NOAA-20 (VJ143MA3) 1 km albedo with earthaccess and reads white-sky shortwave albedo (pip install earthaccess h5py numpy). Variables are located by name, so you do not need to know the HDF-EOS5 group path.

import earthaccess
import h5py
import numpy as np

earthaccess.login()  # free NASA Earthdata account
results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VJ143MA3", version="002",
    temporal=("2024-04-15", "2024-04-15"),
    bounding_box=(124, 33, 132, 39),   # (west, south, east, north)
)
files = earthaccess.download(results, "vj143ma3")

def find(h5, name):
    hits = []
    h5.visititems(lambda k, v: hits.append(k) if k.endswith("/" + name) else None)
    return h5[hits[0]]

for f in files:
    with h5py.File(f, "r") as h5:
        wsa = find(h5, "Albedo_WSA_shortwave")[:].astype("float32")
        qa = find(h5, "BRDF_Albedo_Band_Mandatory_Quality_shortwave")[:]
    wsa[wsa == 32767] = np.nan        # fill value
    wsa *= 0.001                      # scale_factor
    wsa[qa != 0] = np.nan             # keep full inversions only
    print(f, np.nanmean(wsa))

Practical tips¶

• Delivery of Suomi NPP data (VNP43) ends on 2 November 2026. Switch the short names in your scripts to VJ243 (NOAA-21) or VJ143 (NOAA-20), and check for offsets where the satellite changes.
• VNP43, VJ143 and VJ243 share the algorithm but come from different sensors. Before joining them into one series, compare them over their overlap, and state in papers which satellite product you used for which period.
• Multiply albedo by 0.001 and treat 32767 as fill. Using only quality flag 0 (full inversions) is recommended.
• Variable names differ from MODIS MCD43 (M and I bands instead of Band1–7). The broadband names (vis, nir, shortwave) are the same, but the sensors' spectral response differs, so values are not identical.
• The 500 m products (IA) contain only imagery bands I1–I3 and no broadband albedo. For broadband shortwave albedo use the 1 km products (MA) or the 0.05° CMG (C3).
• Files are HDF-EOS5 (HDF5), so MODIS HDF4 code (pyhdf) will not work. The Sinusoidal projection uses the same sphere as MODIS (radius 6371007.181 m).
• Production of VNP43 stopped during the Suomi NPP anomaly of 10–21 July 2026. VNP43 retrievals whose 16-day window includes this period have fewer observations, so check their quality.

Notices and change history¶

References for your paper¶

Dataset citation¶

VJ143MA3 V002 (NOAA-20 albedo, 1 km) — DOI 10.5067/VIIRS/VJ143MA3.002

@misc{vj143ma3_v002,
  author    = {Schaaf, Crystal and Wang, Zhuosen and Erb, Angela and Paynter, Ian},
  title     = {{VIIRS/JPSS1 BRDF/Albedo Albedo Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V002}},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center},
  doi       = {10.5067/VIIRS/VJ143MA3.002}
}

VNP43MA3 V002 (Suomi NPP albedo, 1 km) — DOI 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP43MA3.002

@misc{vnp43ma3_v002,
  author    = {Schaaf, Crystal and Wang, Zhuosen and Erb, Angela and Paynter, Ian},
  title     = {{VIIRS/NPP BRDF/Albedo Albedo Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V002}},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center},
  doi       = {10.5067/VIIRS/VNP43MA3.002}
}

VJ243MA3 V002 (NOAA-21 albedo, 1 km) — DOI 10.5067/VIIRS/VJ243MA3.002

@misc{vj243ma3_v002,
  author    = {Schaaf, Crystal and Wang, Zhuosen and Erb, Angela and Paynter, Ian},
  title     = {{VIIRS/JPSS2 BRDF/Albedo Albedo Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V002}},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center},
  doi       = {10.5067/VIIRS/VJ243MA3.002}
}

Reference papers¶

Evaluation of VIIRS BRDF/Albedo/NBAR and continuity with MODIS — DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2017.09.020

@article{liu2017viirsbrdf,
  author  = {Liu, Yan and Wang, Zhuosen and Sun, Qingsong and Erb, Angela M. and Li, Zhan and Schaaf, Crystal B. and Zhang, Xiaoyang and Rom{\'a}n, Miguel O. and Scott, Russell L. and Zhang, Quan and Novick, Kimberly A. and Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia and Petroy, Shelley and SanClements, Mike},
  title   = {Evaluation of the {VIIRS} {BRDF}, Albedo and {NBAR} products suite and an assessment of continuity with the long term {MODIS} record},
  journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment},
  volume  = {201},
  pages   = {256--274},
  year    = {2017},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.rse.2017.09.020}
}

Continuity between MODIS C6.1 and VIIRS C2 land products (review) — DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2023.113963

@article{roman2024continuity,
  author  = {Rom{\'a}n, Miguel O. and Justice, Chris and Paynter, Ian and Boucher, Peter B. and Devadiga, Sadashiva and Endsley, Arthur and Erb, Angela and Friedl, Mark and Gao, Huilin and Giglio, Louis and Gray, Josh M. and Hall, Dorothy and Hulley, Glynn and Kimball, John and Knyazikhin, Yuri and Lyapustin, Alexei and Myneni, Ranga B. and Noojipady, Praveen and Pu, Jiabin and Riggs, George and Sarkar, Sudipta and Schaaf, Crystal and Shah, Deep and Tran, Khuong H. and Vermote, Eric and Wang, Dongdong and Wang, Zhuosen and Wu, Aisheng and Ye, Yongchang and Shen, Yu and Zhang, Shuai and Zhang, Xiaoyang and Zhao, Maosheng and Davidson, Carol and Wolfe, Robert},
  title   = {Continuity between {NASA} {MODIS} Collection 6.1 and {VIIRS} Collection 2 land products},
  journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment},
  volume  = {302},
  pages   = {113963},
  year    = {2024},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.rse.2023.113963}
}

Acknowledgements¶

LP DAAC asks users to cite each product with the citation on its DOI landing page. Cite the DOI of each satellite product you used (e.g. VJ143IA3 10.5067/VIIRS/VJ143IA3.002, VNP43IA3 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP43IA3.002, VNP43C3 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP43C3.002). Because the algorithm is the same as MODIS MCD43, Schaaf et al. (2002) is commonly cited as well.

Information on the datasets used in this study was compiled with the help of the Korean Climate Data Navigator (KCDN) (Sim, 2026; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23300923).

Links¶

• VIIRS BRDF/Albedo User Guides (C1 and C2, UMass Boston)
• VNP43 Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD)
• VIIRS land surface albedo validation
• LAADS file specification — VNP43MA3
• NOAA — cessation of S-NPP data delivery (2026-08-03)