Monthly mean optical depth at 550 nm derived from AERONET data used for model evaluation in GMD-2021-357

Climatological monthly means over 2000-2014 derived from Aerosol Robotic Network version 3 level 2.0 direct sun retrievals (monthly data) used for model evaluation in Myriokefalitakis et al. (2021), doi: 10.5194/gmd-2021-357

The netCDF file includes the AOD at the 4 native AERONET wavelengths (440 nm, 670 nm, 870 nm and 1020 nm), as well as the interpolated values at 550 nm used for the evaluation. The statistics stored are calculated over the monthly values for the 15 year period and include: monthly mean, 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile, standard deviation, standard error, number of days available per station and month and number of days where coarse AOD dominates (used as proxy for dusty days). 

The AERONET retrievals of optical depth were downloaded through the AERONET data download tool (available at: https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/, last accessed March 28, 2020). We thank the principal investigators and their collaborators for their effort in establishing and maintaining all AERONET sites used in this compilation.

The use of this dataset must follow the guidelines of the original data providers at AERONET, explained here: https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/new_web/data_usage.html