Drought Area Index Reconstruction: readme file
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               World Data Center A- Paleoclimatology
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NOTE: PLEASE CITE ORIGINAL REFERENCES WHEN USING THIS DATA!!!!!

CONTRIBUTORS: Cook, E.R., Meko, D.M. and Stockton, C.W..
NAME OF DATA SET: U.S. Drought Area Index Reconstruction
IGBP PAGES/WDCA CONTRIBUTION SERIES NUMBER: 1998-036

SUGGESTED DATA CITATION: Cook, E.R., Meko, D.M. and Stockton, C.W., 1998, 
U.S. Drought Area Index Reconstruction.  
International Tree-Ring Data Bank.  IGBP PAGES/World Data Center-A for 
Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #98-036.  
NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

ORIGINAL REFERENCE:
Cook, E.R., Meko, D.M. and Stockton, C.W., 1997. A new assessment of possible 
solar and lunar forcing	of the bi-decadal drought rhythm in the western United States. 
Journal of Climate 10:1343-1356.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE:
Cook, E.R., Meko, D.M., Stahle, D.W. and Cleaveland, M.K. 1996. Tree-ring 
reconstructions of past drought across the coterminous United States:  
tests of a regression method and calibration/verification results. 
In Dean, J.S., Meko, D.M. and Swetnam, T.W., eds., 
Tree Rings, Environment, and Humanity. Radiocarbon, Tucson. 155-169.

LAST UPDATE:  10/98 (Original receipt by WDC-A Paleo)
GEOGRAPHIC REGION: Western United States
PERIOD OF RECORD: 1700 - 1978 AD

LIST OF FILES: DAI.readme.txt (this file), DAI.recon.txt.

DESCRIPTION:
File DAI.recon.txt
Drought(-) or Wetness(+) Area Index, defined as the the number of gridpoints
(out of 154) that exceed PDSI thresholds, as defined in the Original Reference, 
for a given year.