============================================================================ README ========================================================================================== This file describes the netCDF files used in Herrera et al. (2018): Exacerbation of the 2013-2016 Pan-Caribbean Drought by Anthropogenic Warming (in press) in the Caribbean (an area bounded between 275-300 deg. W and 11.6-23.3 deg N). (NetCDF) stands for Network Common Data Form, which is a standardized data format commonly used for sharing data in Geosciences. Our files are written in netCDF version 4 (netCDF4), and they can be read in common programming languages such as python, Matlab, R, NCL, C++, and others. The datasets span from 1949-01-01 to 2016-12-31, and include high-resolution (4 km lat/lon) statistically-downscaled monthly precipitation and temperature (Tmin, Tmean, and Tmax) data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) (Schneider et al., 2015) and Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) (Rohde et al., 2013), respectively. Derived fields include potential evapotranspiration (based on the FAO reference evapotranspiration method [Allen et al. 1998]) and self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) (Palmer 1965; Wells et al. 2004) . For all the files, except for precipitation, there are adjusted¯ and unadjusted versions. These terms refer to the use of adjusted (with the anthropogenic signature removed [see Herrera et al. (2018)]) and unadjusted temperatures to calculate PET and scPDSI. The datasets The downscaling and bias-correction procedures used to construct these datasets are described in Herrera and Ault (2017) and in Herrera et al. (2018). File variables: Each netCDF file includes the following variables: [0] time [1] latitude [2] longitude [3] climate_variable time: A list of monthly values presented in days since January 1st 1949 at 00:00:00. For example, January of 1950 is therefore 365, February of 1950 is 396, and so on. latitude: A list of latitude values presented in degrees North, and spans from 11.6 to 23.3 deg. N. longitude: A list of longitude values presented in degrees West¯ and spans from 275 to 300 deg. W. climate_variable: variables include temperature (Tmin, Tmean, and Tmax [in degrees Celsius]), monthly precipitation (mm/month), potential evapotranspiration rate (mm/day), and self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (unitless). References: 1.-Allen, R., &Coauthors(1998). Crop evapotranspiration: Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, 300 pp. 2.- Herrera D., Ault T.(2017). Insights from a new high-resolution drought atlas for the Caribbean spanning 1950 to 2016. J Clim. 30:7801-7825. 3.- Herrera D. A., Ault T. R., Fasullo J. T., Coats S. J., Carrillo C. M., Cook B. I., Williams A. P. (2018). Exacerbation of the 2013-2016 Pan-Caribbean Drought by Anthropogenic Warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. (in press). 4.- Monteith, J. L.(1965). Evaporation and environment. 19th Symp. of the Society for Experimental Biology, Swansea, England, Society for Experimental Biology, 205-234. 5.- Palmer, W. C.(1965). Meteorological drought. U.S. Weather Bureau Research Paper45, 39358 pp. 6.- Penman, H. L.(1948). Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass. Proc. 395Roy. Soc. London, 193,120-145, doi:10.1098/rspa.1948.0037. 7.- Rohde, R., and Coauthors(2013). A new estimate of the average Earth surface land temperature spanning 1753 to 2011. Geoinfo. Geostat.Overview, 1 (1), doi:10.4172/2327-4004581.1000101. 8.- Schneider, U., and Coauthors(2015).GPCC full data reanalysis version 7.0 at 1.08: Monthly land-surface precipitation from rain-gauges built on GTS-based and historic data, 405doi:10.5676/ DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V7_100. 9.- Wells, N., GoddardS., and HayesM. J.(2004).A self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index. J. Climate, 17, 2335-2351, doi:10.1175/1520 0442(2004)017,2335:A-432SPDSI.2.0.CO;2. Licensing: Following the CC-BY License, these datasets can be freely used by the scientific community, and should be cited as follows: Herrera et al. (2018). Data from: Exacerbation of the 2013-2016 Pan-Caribbean drought by anthropogenic warming [dataset]. Cornell University Library eCommons Repository. https://doi.org/10.7298/X4571961 Related Publication: Please also cite the following related publication: Herrera et al. (2018). Exacerbation of the 2013-2016 Pan-Caribbean drought by anthropogenic warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 10,619–10,626. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079408 Acknowledgements: We thank the Advanced Study Program (ASP) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for partially supporting this research through the ASP Graduate Visitor Program. This material is partially supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) EaSM2 Grant AGS-1243125, and NSF Grant AGS-1602564. J. T. F. and S. C. participation in this work is supported through NSF Grant AGS-1243107, NASA Award Number NNH11ZDA001N, and DOE Award ID DE-SC0012711. B.I.C. and A.P.W are supported by the NASA Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction Program, and A.P.W. is supported by the National Science Foundation grant AGS-1703029. For further questions and clarifications, please contact: Dimitris A. Herrera-Hernandez (dah386@cornell.edu) Toby R. Ault (toby.ault@cornell.edu)