The use of measured RF power signals to evaluate feasibility of inverse methods to retrieve refractivity parameters

Radio wave propagation over sea paths is influenced by the local meteorological condition at the atmospheric layer near the surface, especially during ducts. Duct condition can be determined by measurements of local meteorological parameters, by weather forecast models or by using inverse methods. In order to evaluate the feasibility of using inverse methods to retrieve the refractivity profiles a measurement of RF signals and meteorological parameters were carried out at a test site in the Baltic. During the measurements, signal power from two broadcast antennas, one at Visby and one at Vastervik, were received at Musko, an island south of Stockholm. The measurements were performed during the summer 2005 and the data was used to test the software package for inversion methods, SAGA (Seismo Acoustic inversion using Genetic Algorithms, by Peter Gerstoft UCSD, US). Refractivity profiles retrieved by SAGA were compared with the refractivity profiles calculated from measured parameters, during parts of the experiment, from rocket sounding, radio sounding, local meteorological measurements using bulk model calculations, and also obtained by the Swedish operational weather forecast model HIRLAM. Surface based duct height are predicted in relative many situations even though the number of frequencies or antennas height has to be increased to diminish the ambiguous of the refractive index profile.