AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) is an optical ground-based aerosol monitoring network and data archive system. AERONET measurements of the column-integrated aerosol optical properties in the southern Africa region were made by sun-sky radiometers at several sites in August-September 2000 as a part of the SAFARI 2000 dry season aircraft campaign.AERONET is supported by NASA's Earth Observing System and expanded by federation with many non-NASA institutions. The network hardware consists of identical automatic sun-sky scanning spectral radiometers owned by national agencies and universities. Data from this collaboration provides globally-distributed near-real-time observations of aerosol spectral optical depths, aerosol size distributions, and precipitable water in diverse aerosol regimes.The AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) program is an inclusive federation of ground-based remote sensing aerosol networks established by AERONET and PHOTON and greatly expanded by AEROCAN (the Canadian sun-photometer network) and other agency, institute and university partners. The goal is to assess aerosol optical properties and validate satellite retrievals of aerosol optical properties. The network imposes standardization of instruments, calibration, and processing. Data from this collaboration provides globally distributed observations of spectral aerosol optical depths, inversion products, and precipitable water in geographically diverse aerosol regimes. Three levels of data are available from the AERONET website: Level 1.0 (unscreened), Level 1.5 (cloud-screened), and Level 2.0 (Cloud-screened and quality-assured). (CAUTION: Data presented in the real time data version is unscreened and may not have final calibration reprocessing.) For each site there is a Principal Investigator (PI), the person responsible for deployment, maintenance and data collection. The PI is entitled to be informed of any use of that site data.NOTICE TO NON-AERONET INVESTIGATORS: To maintain the integrity of the data base and fairness to the individuals who have contributed, use of these data for publication requires an offer of authorship to the AERONET PI(s).