VIIRS/NPP Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V002

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221C1 (primary) or VJ121C1 (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) Climate Modeling Grid Version 2 product (VNP21C) is compiled daily from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate products. The L2G process maps the daily VNP21 swath granules onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid and stores all observations overlapping a gridded cell for a given day. The VNP21A1 algorithm sorts through all these observations for each cell and estimates the final LST value as an average from all cloud-free observations that have good LST accuracies. The 0.05 degree (5600 m) dataset is derived through resampling the native 750 meter VIIRS resolution in the input product. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP21C1 product contains 25 Science Datasets (SDS) variables: LST, quality control, view zenith angle, and time of observation for both day and night observations along with emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16. Low-resolution browse images for day and night LST are also available for each VNP21C1 granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221C2 (primary) or VJ121C2 (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) 8-day Climate Modeling Grid Version 2 product (VNP21C2) combines the daily VNP21A1D and VNP21A1N products over an 8-day compositing period into a single product. The VNP21C2 dataset is an 8-day composite LST&E product at 0.05 degree (~5,600 meter) resolution that uses an algorithm based on a simple-averaging method and is formatted as a CMG for use in climate simulation models. The algorithm calculates the average from all the cloud-free VNP21A1D and VNP21A1N daily acquisitions from the 8-day period. Unlike the VNP21A1 datasets where the daytime and nighttime acquisitions are separate products, the VNP21C2 contains both daytime and nighttime acquisitions as separate science dataset (SDS) variable within a single Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) file. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP21C2 product contains 27 Science Datasets (SDS) variables LST, quality control, view zenith angle, and time of observation for both day and night observations along with emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16. Low-resolution browse images for day and night LST are also available for each VNP21C2 granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221A1N (primary) or VJ121A1N (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) Night Version 2 product (VNP21A1N) is compiled daily from nighttime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate products. The L2G process maps the daily VNP21 swath granules onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid and stores all observations overlapping a gridded cell for a given night. The VNP21A1 algorithm sorts through all these observations for each cell and estimates the final LST value as an average from all cloud-free observations that have good LST accuracies. The nighttime average is weighted by the observation coverage for that cell. Only observations having observation coverage more than a certain threshold (15%) are considered for this averaging. The 1 kilometer dataset is derived through resampling the native 750 meter VIIRS resolution in the input product. The VNP21A1N product is developed synergistically with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST&E Version 6.1 product (MOD21A1N) using the same input atmospheric products and algorithmic approach. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP21A1N product contains seven Science Datasets (SDS) variables: LST, quality control, emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16, view zenith angle, and time of observation. A low-resolution browse image for LST is also available for each VNP21A1N granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221A1D (primary) or VJ121A1D (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) Day Version 2 product (VNP21A1D) is compiled daily from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate products. The L2G process maps the daily VNP21 swath granules onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid and stores all observations overlapping a gridded cell for a given day. The VNP21A1 algorithm sorts through all these observations for each cell and estimates the final LST value as an average from all cloud-free observations that have good LST accuracies. The daytime average is weighted by the observation coverage for that cell. Only observations having observation coverage more than a certain threshold (15%) are considered for this averaging. The 1 kilometer dataset is derived through resampling the native 750 meter VIIRS resolution in the input product. The VNP21A1D product is developed synergistically with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST&E Version 6.1 product (MOD21A1D) using the same input atmospheric products and algorithmic approach. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP21A1D product contains seven Science Datasets (SDS) variables: LST, quality control, emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16, view zenith angle, and time of observation. A low-resolution browse image for LST is also available for each VNP21A1D granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221A2 (primary) or VJ121A2 (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) 8-day product (VNP21A2) combines the daily VNP21A1D and VNP21A1N products over an 8-day compositing period into a single product. The VNP21A2 dataset is an 8-day composite LST&E product at 1 kilometer resolution that uses an algorithm based on a simple-averaging method. The algorithm calculates the average from all the cloud-free VNP21A1D and VNP21A1N daily acquisitions from the 8-day period. Unlike the VNP21A1 datasets where the daytime and nighttime acquisitions are separate products, the VNP21A2 contains both daytime and nighttime acquisitions as separate science dataset (SDS) variables within a single Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) file. The VNP21A2 product is developed synergistically with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST&E Version 6.1 product (MOD21A2) using the same input atmospheric products and algorithmic approach. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The VNP21A2 product contains 11 Science Datasets (SDS) variables: LST, quality control, view zenith angle, and time of observation for both day and night observations along with emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16. Low-resolution browse images for day and night LST are also available for each VNP21A2 granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

The delivery of all Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) VIIRS science data products will cease on November 2, 2026 (2026/306). Data users are encouraged to transition to the equivalent VJ221 (primary) or VJ121 (secondary) data products. The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) Version 2 swath product (VNP21) is produced daily in 6-minute temporal increments of satellite acquisition. The VNP21 product uses a physics-based algorithm to dynamically retrieve both the LST and emissivity simultaneously for VIIRS thermal infrared bands M14 (8.55 µm), M15 (10.76 µm), and M16 (12 µm) at a spatial resolution of 750 meters. The VNP21 product is developed synergistically with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST&E Version 6.1 product (MOD21) using the same input atmospheric products and algorithmic approach based on the ASTER Temperature Emissivity Separation (TES) technique. The TES algorithm is combined with an improved Water Vapor Scaling (WVS) atmospheric correction scheme to stabilize the retrieval during very warm and humid conditions. The overall objective for NASA VIIRS products is to ensure the algorithms and products are compatible with the MODIS Terra and Aqua algorithms to promote the continuity of the Earth Observation System (EOS) mission. Additional details regarding the method used to create this Level 2 (L2) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). Provided in the VNP21 product are layers for LST, quality control, emissivity for bands M14, M15, and M16, LST&E errors, view angle, ASTER Global Emissivity Dataset (GED), Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV), ocean-land mask, latitude, and longitude. A low-resolution browse image for LST is also available for each VNP21 granule. Known Issues * Users of VIIRS and MODIS LST products may notice an increase in occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers in the unfiltered VNP21 and MxD21 products compared to the heritage MxD11 LST products. This can occur especially over desert regions like the Sahara where undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact MxD11, MxD21, and VNP21 retrieval algorithms. * In the MxD11 LST products, these contaminated pixels are flagged in the algorithm and set to fill values in the output products based on differences in the band 32 and band 31 radiances used in the generalized split window algorithm. In the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products, values for the contaminated pixels are retained in the output products (and may result in overestimated temperatures), and users need to apply Quality Control (QC) filtering and other error analyses for filtering out bad values. High temperature outlier thresholds are not employed in VNP21 and MxD21 since it would potentially remove naturally occurring hot surface targets such as fires and lava flows. * High atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) caused by vast dust outbreaks in the Sahara and other deserts highlighted in the example documentation are the primary reason for high outlier surface temperature values (and corresponding low emissivity values) in the VNP21 and MxD21 LST products. Future versions of the VNP21 and MxD21 products will include a dust flag from the MODIS aerosol product and/or brightness temperature look up tables to filter out contaminated dust pixels. It should be noted that in the MxD11B day/night algorithm products, more advanced cloud filtering is employed in the multi-day products based on a temporal analysis of historical LST over cloudy areas. This may result in more stringent filtering of dust contaminated pixels in these products. * To mitigate the impact of dust in the VNP21 and MxD21 products, the science team recommends using a combination of the existing QC bits, emissivity values, and estimated product errors, to confidently remove bad pixels from analysis. For more details, refer to this dust and cloud contamination example documentation. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.