The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) is an international network of ground-based space weather radars which have operated continuously in the Arctic and Antarctic regions for more than 30 years. These high-frequency (HF) radars use over-the-horizon (OTH) radio wave propagation to detect ionospheric plasma structures across ranges of up to several thousand kilometers. As a byproduct of this technique, the transmitted radar signals frequently reflect from the Earth's surface and can be observed as ground/sea backscatter echoes.
This project analyzes historical and ongoing SuperDARN ground/sea backscatter data for comparison to sea ice measurements obtained from space-based microwave remote sensors. Improvements made in the detection and geolocation of SuperDARN ground/sea backscatter echoes have not only benefited studies of land/sea surface features in radar observations but also increased the quality of global space weather maps of ionospheric plasma convection. As a contributor to the Arctic Observing Network () program, monthly files containing daily maps of ground/sea backscatter occurrence from 7 SuperDARN radars have been delivered to the National Science Foundation's Arctic Data Center and are available in NetCDF-format here.
The of this project is Simon Shepherd (Dartmouth College). For more information, please contact Evan Thomas at evan.g.thomas@dartmouth.edu.