Volcanic Eruptions and Aerosol Optical Depth Data: Readme file
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
               World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder
                                  and
                     NOAA Paleoclimatology Program
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: PLEASE CITE CONTRIBUTORS WHEN USING THIS DATA!!!!!

NAME OF DATA SET: Volcanic Eruptions and Aerosol Optical Depth Data
LAST UPDATE: 4/2002 (Original Receipt by WDC Paleo)

CONTRIBUTOR: Reid Bryson, University of Wisconsin

IGBP PAGES/WDCA CONTRIBUTION SERIES NUMBER: 2002-022

SUGGESTED DATA CITATION: Bryson, R.A., 2002,
Volcanic Eruptions and Aerosol Optical Depth Data, 
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology 
Data Contribution Series # 2002-022.
NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

ORIGINAL REFERENCES:  Bryson, R.A., 1988, 
Late Quaternary Volcanic Modulation of Milankovitch Climate Forcing,
Theoretical and Applied Climatology 39, 115125.

Goodman, B.M. (1984) THE CLIMATIC IMPACT OF VOLCANIC ACTIVITY. 
Ph.D.Thesis, Department of Meteorology, University of Wisconsin Madison, 245pp.

GEOGRAPHIC REGION: Global

PERIOD OF RECORD: 40 KYrBP-present 


LIST OF FILES: Readme_Bryson1988.txt (this file),
Bryson1988_appendix.doc (Microsoft Word format),
eruptions.txt, optical_depth_obs.txt, optical_depth_recon.txt 
(tab-delimited text files).


DESCRIPTION: 
Volcanic Eruptions and Aerosol Optical Depth Data

Volcanic and aerosol data used in the construction of the estimated 
aerosol optical depth history.  The first table is a list of 
radiocarbon dated eruptions from which a subset of all unique events 
was extracted by eliminating duplicate dates from a common location.  

The second table is the observed annual hemispheric mean aerosol 
optical depth (AOD), taken from Goodman (1984).  This was used throughout 
the studies summarized here in the conversion of the volcanicity index  
into a long history of aerosol optical depth (Bryson, 1988).  
This 40000 year long estimate of AOD is also given in table App 3.