VIIRS Nighttime Day/Night Annual Band Composites V2.1

Dataset Availability

2012-04-01T00:00:00Z–2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Dataset Provider

Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines

Earth Engine Snippet

ee.ImageCollection("NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/ANNUAL_V21")

Cadence

1 Year

Tags

annual dnb eog lights nighttime noaa viirs visible

Description

Annual global VIIRS nighttime lights dataset is a time series produced from monthly cloud-free average radiance grids spanning 2013 to 2021. Data for 2022 are available in the NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/ANNUAL_V22 dataset.

An initial filtering step removed sunlit, moonlit and cloudy pixels, leading to rough composites that contains lights, fires, aurora and background. The rough annual composites are made on monthly increments and then combined to form rough annual composites.

The subsequent steps uses the twelve-month median radiance to discard high and low radiance outliers, filtering out most fires and isolating the background. Background areas are zeroed out using the data range (DR) calculated from 3x3 grid cells. The DR threshold for background is indexed to cloud-cover levels, with higher DR thresholds in areas having low numbers of cloud-free coverages.

Note: 2012 data are not yet included because of differences in processing. (A) 201204-201212, and (B) 201204-201303. Only set (B) has masked median and average bands which doesn't follow the pattern there in other year datasets.

Bands

Resolution
463.83 meters

Bands

Name	Units	Description
average	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Average DNB radiance values.
average_masked	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Average Masked DNB radiance values
cf_cvg		Cloud-free coverages; the total number of observations that went into each pixel. This band can be used to identify areas with low numbers of observations where the quality is reduced.
cvg		Total number of observations free of sunlight and moonlight.
maximum	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Maximum DNB radiance values.
median	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Median DNB radiance values
median_masked	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Median masked DNB radiance values.
minimum	nanoWatts/sr/cm^2	Minimum DNB radiance values

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

Colorado School of Mines data, information, and products, regardless of the method of delivery, are not subject to copyright and carry no restrictions on their subsequent use by the public. Once obtained, they may be put to any lawful use. The forgoing data is in the public domain and is being provided without restriction on use and distribution.

Citations

Citations:

• Elvidge, C.D, Zhizhin, M., Ghosh T., Hsu FC, Taneja J. Annual time series of global VIIRS nighttime lights derived from monthly averages:2012 to 2019. Remote Sensing 2021, 13(5), p.922, doi:10.3390/rs13050922 doi:10.3390/rs13050922

DOIs

• https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13050922

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Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/ANNUAL_V21')
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2020-01-01', '2021-01-01'));

var nighttime = dataset.select('maximum');
var nighttimeVis = {min: 0.0, max: 60.0};
Map.setCenter(-77.1056, 38.8904, 8);
Map.addLayer(nighttime, nighttimeVis, 'Nighttime');

Open in Code Editor

VIIRS Nighttime Day/Night Annual Band Composites V2.1

Annual global VIIRS nighttime lights dataset is a time series produced from monthly cloud-free average radiance grids spanning 2013 to 2021. Data for 2022 are available in the NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/ANNUAL_V22 dataset. An initial filtering step removed sunlit, moonlit and cloudy pixels, leading to rough composites that contains lights, fires, aurora and …

NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/ANNUAL_V21, annual,dnb,eog,lights,nighttime,noaa,viirs,visible

2012-04-01T00:00:00Z/2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

-65.0 -180.0 75.0 180.0

Google Earth Engine

https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets

• https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13050922