The VIIRS/JPSS1 Albedo Daily L3 Global 500 m SIN Grid Near Real Time (NRT), short-name VJ143IA3N product provides albedo values at 500 m resolution for the bi-hemispherical reflectance white-sky albedos (WSA) and directional hemispherical reflectance black-sky albedos (BSA) at local solar noon. The VNP43IA3N product is produced daily using 16-day VIIRS data (i.e., the current day and the previous 15 days).

The algorithm uses the RossThick/Li-Sparse-Reciprocal (RTLSR) semi-empirical kernel-driven BRDF model, with the three kernel weights from VJ143IA1N to reconstruct surface anisotropic effects, correcting the directional reflectance to a common view geometry (VJ143IA4N), while also computing integrated black-sky albedo (BSA) at local solar noon and white-sky albedo (WSA) (VJ143IA3N). 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) at https://www.umb.edu/editor_uploads/images/school_for_the_environment_cs/Viirs/VIIRS_ATBD_Apr_Jul2017.pdf

The VNP43IA3N product provides a total of 9 SDS layers including: BSA, WSA, and mandatory quality layers for VIIRS imagery bands I1, I2, and I3.