Data Policy

Notice to users:

The public domain data you are about to download are contributed by the International AERONET Federation. Each site has a Principal Investigator(s) (PI) , responsible for deployment, maintenance and data collection. The PI has priority use of the data collected at the site. The PI is entitled to be informed of any other use of that site data. PI contact information can be found on data charts and in downloaded data files for each AERONET site.

Recommended guidelines for data use and publication:

Although journal paper authorship and acknowledgement is the domain of the senior author and no policy is universally applicable, the AERONET contributors ask that every practical attempt be made to honor the following general guidelines.

Using AERONET data:
Please consult with the PI(s) and Co-I(s) of the data to be used.

Referencing:
Always cite the appropriate key AERONET papers for any publications as well as cite relevant manuscripts pertaining to previously published site data.

Publishing AERONET data from a 'few' sites:
Please consider authorship for the PI(s) and Co-I(s) and/or the following acknowledgement:

We thank the (Project/PI(s)/Co-I(s)) for (its/theirs) effort in establishing and maintaining (site name(s)) sites.

Publishing data from 'many' sites:
A general acknowledgement is typically sufficient and may read:

We thank the (PI(s) and Co-I(s)) and their staff for establishing and maintaining the (#)sites used in this investigation.

However if the AERONET data are a principal component of the paper then co-authorship to PI(s) and Co-I(s) should be offered.