ISLSCP II Cloud and Meteorology Parameters
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File Name Convention
--------------------
The files in this data set contain monthly cloud and meteorological parameter 
data for the years 1986-1994 and January-October for 1995. 

A complete listing of all parameters included in this data set is provided below. 

All data files are organized by variable, and have a file extension of ".zip" .

There are 8 data files *.zip, with this 
data set:

srb_cldamt_1d_monthly.zip

srb_cldtopp_1d_monthly.zip

srb_cldtopt_1d_monthly.zip

srb_cwv_1d_monthly.zip

srb_ozone_1d_monthly.zip

srb_skint_1d_monthly.zip

srb_tau_1d_monthly.zip

srb_water_1d_monthly.zip


The 472 ASCII file names within each of the zip files are named as follows:

srb_variable_av_1d_YYYYMM00.asc
where 

srb	   is short for "Surface Radiation Budget".
variable         this is the variable name (See below for listing). The variable
	   name can also include "_av" for mean, "_sd" for standard deviation,
	   "_mn" for minimum, or "_mx" for maximum data.
1d	   This identifies the spatial resolution of the data: "1d" for 1-degree
	   in both latitude and longitude.
YYYY	   4-digit year from 1986 to 1995.
MM	   2-digit month from 01 to 12.
00	   denotes a monthly value.

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ASCII File Format
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All of the files in the ISLSCP Initiative II data collection are in standard ArcGIS, ASCII grid, 
text format. The file format consists of numerical fields which are arranged 
in columns and rows. The files in these data sets all contain 360 columns by 180 
rows. 

All files are gridded to a common equal-angle lat/long grid with a spatial 
resolution of 1.0 degree lat/long, where the coordinates of the upper left corner 
of the files are located at 180 degrees W, 90 degrees N and the lower right 
corner coordinates are located at 180 degrees E, 90 degrees S. Data in the files
are ordered from North to South and from West to East beginning at 180 degrees 
West and 90 degrees North. 

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Parameter Listing
-----------------
The following is a listing of all the parameters included in this data set. The 
"File Types" column indicates the temporal resolution of the data for any 
particular parameter. The values in parentheses in the "File Types" column 
indicate whether the mean ("av"), standard deviation ("sd"), maximum ("mx"), or 
minimum ("mn").

Cloud Data
==========

Variable    Description (Units)                       File Types
--------    -------------------                       ----------
cldamt      total cloud amount (%)                    monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
cldtopp     cloud-top pressure (hPa)                  monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
cldtopt     cloud-top temperature (degrees K)         monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
cwv         column water vapor (g/cm2)                monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
ozone       column ozone (dobson units)               monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
skint       surface skin temperature (degrees K)      monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
tau         cloud optical depth (unitless)            monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)
water       cloud liquid water path (g/m2)            monthly (av,sd,mx,mn)


av  - File contains the mean (average) values
sd  - File contains the standard deviation values
mx  - File contains the maximum values
mn  - File contains the minimum values