Nighttime Lights Compositing Using the VIIRS Day-Night Band: Preliminary Results

Abstract

Dramatically improved nighttime lights capabilities are presented by the launch of the National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day Night Band (DNB) sensor. Building on 18 years of experience compositing nighttime data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS), NOAA’s NGDC Earth Observation Group has started adapting their algorithms to process these new data. The concept of compositing nighttime data comprises combining only high quality data components over a period of time to improve sensitivity and coverage. For this work, flag image are compiled to describe image quality. The flag categories include: daytime, twilight, stray light, lunar illuminance, noisy edge of scan data, clouds, and no data. High quality data is defined as not having any of these attributes present. Two methods of reprojection are necessary due to data collection characteristics. Custom algorithms have been created to terrain-correct and reproject all data to a common 15 arc second grid.  Results of compositing over two time periods in 2012 are presented to demonstrate data quality and initial capabilities.  These data can be downloaded at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/viirs/download_viirs_ntl.html .