Longyearbyen (LYR) Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) High Frequency (HF) Radar Ground Scatter Data (2016-2018)

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 several thousand kilometers (km). As a byproduct of this technique, the transmitted radar signals frequently reflect from the Earth's surface and can be observed as ground backscatter echoes. The monthly files in this dataset contain maps of daily ground backscatter observations from the Longyearbyen (LYR) SuperDARN HF radar binned onto an equal-area 24 km grid. The LYR radar is located in Svalbard, Norway (78.15°N, 16.07°E) and is operated by the University Centre in Svalbard (Principal Investigator: Dag A. Lorentzen, [e-mail]) with funding support from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and the ConocoPhillips and Lundin Arctic Approach Research Project.