This contains data sets and their description for the paper "How long is too long? Variogram analysis of AERONET data to aid aerosol validation and intercomparison studies" submitted to the journal Earth and Space Science by this author. This study investigates the uncertainty introduced into comparisons (between e.g. AERONET ground observations, satellite retrievals, or model simulations) of aerosol optical properties due to differences in time of observation between the data sets. This uncertainty source has historically been neglected but is potentially important in some situations. Journal policies are that Supporting Information data sets can no longer be archived with the paper, but instead should be uploaded to a separate repository. As a result, I have uploaded these data here. This data set consists of one pdf file describing the data sets, and then two zip archives containing the data (ASCII format). The total size is approximately 10 MB. These data files allow the reproduction of analysis results in this paper, and enable researchers to estimate temporal mismatch uncertainties in their own analyses involving AERONET sites.