VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite)

The operational successor to MODIS, flying on the JPSS series of satellites (a NASA-NOAA joint operational weather/environment program). VIIRS extends MODIS’s science continuity through ~2040 across three currently-flying satellites.

What it sees

• 22 spectral bands, 0.4 µm to 12.5 µm.
• Day/Night Band (DNB) — uniquely sensitive to nighttime visible light (moonlit landscapes, city lights, lightning, gas flares). MODIS could not do this; VIIRS DNB is the only such global civilian dataset.
• 750 m for most bands; 375 m for the imaging “I-bands” (5 bands).
• ~3000 km swath → daily near-global coverage.

Why it matters

• MODIS continuity — VIIRS land/atmosphere/ocean products are designed to match MODIS for cross-mission climate-data records.
• Black Marble (nighttime lights from VIIRS DNB) — urbanization monitoring, post-disaster electricity restoration, ship/vessel detection.
• Three operational platforms (S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21) for redundancy + improved temporal sampling.

Where to get the data

• earthaccess Python: short names with VNP* (S-NPP), VJ1* (NOAA-20), VJ2* (NOAA-21) prefixes
• LAADS DAAC for L1+L2 atmosphere: ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
• LP DAAC for land products
• Black Marble: blackmarble.gsfc.nasa.gov + earthaccess short_name="VNP46A1" / VNP46A2

What it enables

• Same as MODIS land/atmosphere/ocean (forest, fires, NDVI, LST, sea-surface temperature, ocean color)
• Nighttime lights — electrification, disaster impact (e.g., Puerto Rico after Maria), urbanization, light pollution
• Operational fire detection at 375 m (vs MODIS 1 km) — sharper hotspot localization
• Hurricane intensity (DNB sees clouds at night by moonlight)
• Snow + sea ice continuity beyond MODIS

Gotchas

• Three identical instruments on three platforms — be explicit which (S-NPP / NOAA-20 / NOAA-21) for traceability. They are NOT pixel-for-pixel identical due to calibration drift.
• VIIRS != MODIS pixel-for-pixel. Climate-data records use “harmonization” / “bias correction” — don’t naïvely concatenate.
• DNB is finicky. Lunar contamination, stray light, atmospheric correction issues. Use Black Marble’s BRDF-corrected product, not raw DNB.
• 375 m I-bands and 750 m M-bands have different geolocation grids. Check before fusing within a scene.

Related missions

• MODIS — direct predecessor. VIIRS continues MODIS science.
• JPSS-3 / NOAA-22 (planned ~2027): next VIIRS instrument.
• GOES-R + Himawari + MTG (geostationary): complementary 10-minute cadence at coarser resolution.

Related datasets