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Full catalog/VNP16A3GF
VNP16A3GF·v002·dataset

How much water plants release, gap-filled yearly (VIIRS, Suomi-NPP, 500 m)

VIIRS/NPP Actual and Potential Evapotranspiration Gap-Filled Yearly L4 Global 500m SIN Grid V002
atmosphere NASA LPCLOUD Level 4 active HDF-EOS5
In plain English

What it measures. How much water leaves the land through evaporation and plant transpiration over a full year, plus the related energy and the potential amount under ideal conditions, mapped globally at 500 meters.

How it's made. Calculated with the Penman-Monteith approach using VIIRS data from Suomi-NPP plus weather reanalysis, then gap-filled at year's end to remove poor-quality pixels.

How & where you'd use it. Supports yearly assessments of water use by landscapes, drought tracking, and water-resource planning; because it's compiled annually, it isn't available in near-real time.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR PROCESSES › EVAPOTRANSPIRATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR PROCESSES › EVAPORATIONATMOSPHERE › PRECIPITATION › PRECIPITATION PROFILES › LATENT HEAT FLUX

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (VIIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS5
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Actual and Potential Evapotranspiration product is a gap-filled yearly composite dataset produced at 500 meter (m) pixel resolution. The VIIRS ET and PET algorithm is based on the Penman-Monteith equation, which includes inputs of daily meteorological reanalysis data along with VIIRS remotely sensed data products such as 8-day vegetation property dynamics and daily surface albedo. The VNP16A3GF will be generated at the end of each year when the entire yearly 8-day VNP15A2H is available. Hence, the gap-filled VNP16A3GF is the improved VNP16A2, which has cleaned the poor-quality inputs from 8-day Leaf Area Index and Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (LAI/FPAR) based on the Quality Control (QC) label for every pixel. If any LAI/FPAR pixel did not meet the quality screening criteria, its value is determined through linear interpolation. However, users cannot get VNP16A3GF in near-real time because it will be generated only at the end of a given year. Provided in the VNP16A3GF product are layers for composited Evapotranspiration (ET), Latent Heat Flux (LE), Potential ET (PET) and Potential LE (PLE) along with a quality control layer. Two low resolution browse images, ET and LE, are also available for each VNP16A3GF granule. The pixel values for the two Evapotranspiration layers (ET and PET) are the sum for all days within the defined year, and the pixel values for the two Latent Heat layers (LE and PLE) are the average of all days within the defined year. Known Issues * Please refer to the [VIIRS Land Products website](https://viirsland.gsfc.nasa.gov/Products/NASA/ET_ESDR.html) and [MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website](https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/knownissue?sensor=VIIRS) for information about VNP16A3GF known issues.

Get the data

vnp16a3gf_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VNP16A3GF",
    version="002",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.