This document provides information about the content and the structure of 
the gridded self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) for the 
Greater Alpine Region (GAR) developed by the Climatic Research Unit. 
The scPDSI is a measure for drought and is calculated from monthly values of 
temperature and precipitation, which are developed in the framework of the
ALP-IMP project (http://www.zamg.ac.at/ALP-IMP/).

We acknowledge support from the UK Natural Environment Research Counsil (NERC)
through the RAPID Climate Change programme (NER/T/S/2002/00440) and from the ALP-IMP project funded
by the European Commission (EVK2-CT-2002-00 148)

Please cite this reference when using this dataset:
van der Schrier, G., D. Efthymiadis, K.R. Briffa and P.D. Jones, (2007)
European Alpine moisture variability for 1800-2003,
Intern. J. Climatology 27:415-427, doi:10.1002/joc.1411.


Dataset Summary
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File name               Quantity       Units            Array Dimensions   
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scpdsi.alpine.dat       scPDSI         0.01*index       12 x 204 x 90 x 36   


Dataset Structure
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The area covered by the files ranges from 4deg to 19deg East and from 43deg to 
49deg North. The grid resolution is 10 min, i.e. there are 6 grid-cells within 
any 1-deg interval, both in longitude and latitude, which are centred at 5min, 
15min, 25min, 35min, 45min, 55min. Thus there are 90 samples per zonal row, centred
from 4deg 5 min to 18deg 55min and 36 samples per meridional row, centred from 
43deg 5 min to 48deg 55min. Each sample value of the file corresponds to 
a monthly-mean scPDSI value. For every grid 
point the monthly value storing order follows the calendar month sequence, 
i.e. from January to December, for each year from 1800 to 2003.

The grid-point sequence runs zonally from West to East and then from South to 
North.