International Tree-ring Data Bank: measurements.readme file
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               World Data Center A- Paleoclimatology
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NOTE: PLEASE CITE ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTOR WHEN USING THIS DATA!!!!!

CONTRIBUTORS:  Numerous ITRDB Members
NAME OF DATA SET:  International Tree-ring Data Bank Measurements
LAST UPDATE:  1/2006 (Version 5.08).  
Contributions since January 2006 can be found in the directory /paleo/treering/updates
GEOGRAPHIC REGION: Global
PERIOD OF RECORD: 2005 A.D.  - 6000 B.C.
LIST OF FILES: Readme.measurements.txt (this file),  
Treeinfo.txt (Information on methods and file formats), 
Version.txt (Update history of the ITRDB), 
*.rwl files (over 6000 files of ring measurements in geographic directories).

DESCRIPTION:
This directory contains the tree ring width or density raw measurements from
the International Tree Ring Data Bank.  The files are available in both ASCII
and in compressed format, due to the large volume of data.  PKZIP, a DOS
based compression utility, was used to compress the files.  If you need 
measurement data in ASCII format, move to the  appropriate regional  
directory, where ASCII versions of the data files are stored.

Quality control on the ITRDB measurements archive was conducted in 1996 by Henri
Grissino-Mayer using the COFECHA program from the ITRDB Program Library, and again 
in 2005 by Jeff Lukas and Henry Adams.  COFECHA output files can be found in the 
subdirectory /measurements/correlation-stats.

The .zip files must be transferred in binary mode, and then 
uncompressed.  The decompression program pkunzip.exe is available in
this directory and should also be downloaded in FTP binary mode.
Web browsers will automatically download in the correct FTP ASCII or Binary mode.  
At the DOS prompt type "pkunzip compressedfile" to decompress all measurements 
files stored in the file called  "compressedfile". Type "pkunzip" at the DOS
prompt for help. 

The data files have been grouped geographically, by country or region.
When unzipped, the resulting data file names correspond to those used 
for the ITRDB chronologies, i.e.  NEWZ001.RWL and NEWZ001.CRN are the 
ring widths and site chronology for the site 001 in New Zealand.  
Some file names, i.e NEWZ1.RWL, will not correspond to any chronology 
file name, because the original contributor did not compute a site 
chronology.  If you prefer ASCII files, download
(for example)  az*.rwl  from the /asciifiles  directory to 
retrieve all arizona measurement files.


The ITRDB chronologies are in the directory /chronologies.