VIIRS land surface albedo product: Algorithm development and validation

Abstract

Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) land surface albedo (LSA) product is one of the routinely generated VIIRS environmental data records (EDR). A direct estimation approach based on radiative transfer simulation was developed to directly estimate instantaneous LSA value from VIIRS clear-sky top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance. Comprehensive validations and evaluations were performed by comparing VIIRS LSA retrieval with ground measurements, MODIS 16-day mean albedo product, and Landsat high-resolution albedo estimation. Recently, an algorithm framework was also developed to produce a new gridded and temporal-filtered VIIRS LSA product, which is expected to provide spatially and temporally continuous LSA map with improved accuracy, and facilitate the analysis and application of global LSA data.