Dynamic refractive environments within the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) pose difficulties in the prediction of super high frequency (SHF), specifically X-band, radar wave propagation due to natural phenomena such as evaporation ducts (ED). This study utilizes a unique dataset collected during the CASPER-East field campaign, including multiple refractivity estimation methods and twelve point-to-point (PTP) electromagnetic datasets, to assess the efficacy of PTP inversion techniques for remote sensing of atmospheric refractivity within the MABL. Comparison of refractivity between the inverse and other refractivity methods show reasonable evaporation duct height estimates by the inversion, and inverse-based propagation predictions are also shown to be more accurate than propagation based on other refractivity prediction methods – numerical weather prediction, theory, and in-situ atmospheric measurements. These results propose the effectiveness of a PTP metaheuristic radar inversion to remotely sense refractive environments from radar propagation measurements in stable and unstable atmospheric conditions.

This document describes "InversionDataStructure.mat" 

The structure is broken down over 8 days, times, and method of environmental estimation. Days and times correspond to the Table 1 in the manuscript. Only the best environmental estimates are included. The last field indicates the method which is one of the following options: MAPS - measured met data, COARE - MO Theory estimates, COAMPS - numerical weather prediction estimates, Inversion - inversion solutions, MeasuredRF - measured RF data.

Example: "InvStructure.Day3.Time2.COAMPS" contains the 5 variables listed below for the best environmental estimation (lowest MSE - see manuscript) with the method COAMPS on 10/15/2015 at 18:53 EST.

Each method field contains the following 5 variables:
    1) Mprof - modified refractivity profiles (M-units) *multiple profiles indicates range dependent profiles see Table 1 in manuscript for profile        ranges
    2) Alt - altitude vector for the modified refracivity profile (meters)
    3) PL - simulated propagation loss for the included modified refractivity profile (dB)
    4) range - the range (km) of the PL data
    5) altitudePL - altitude vector corresponding to the PL data (meters)

Measured RF data are included for each of the days under the field name "MeasuredRF", for example "InvStructure.Day3.Time2.MeasuredRF" would supply the measured RF data for 10/15/2015 at 18:53 EST.