BirdCast: Tracking Migration with Weather Radar
With Meteorologist Ross Ellet, 13ABC & Adriaan Dokter, Cornell Lab
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Presented by Ross Ellet and Adriaan Dokter
Date: Friday, May 8 Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. Location: Maumee Bay Lodge Ballroom Fee: $10 Registration Required: Yes Capacity: 300 |
Join Ross Ellet, meteorologist at 13ABC, Toledo, and Adriaan Dokter of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for an engaging presentation exploring the intersection of weather, radar technology, and bird migration.
Each spring and fall billions of migratory birds migrate across the contiguous United States. These movements occur mostly at night and are therefore largely invisible to human observers. BirdCast.org is a collaborative research project and outreach platform managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for observing and forecasting migration using the NEXRAD weather radar network. BirdCast’s migration dashboard provides near-real time data on bird densities, passage rates, flight altitudes, speed and direction. Using machine learning models, historical radar data are combined with weather prediction models, providing forecasts of migration intensity several days in advance. Ross and Adriaan will discuss how we use the historical NEXRAD archive to assess long-term changes in migratory patterns in response to global environmental changes, such as population declines, phenology shifts and return rates. They will also discuss how our interdisciplinary work not only advances our understanding of avian migration, but also informs conservation efforts, such as “lights out” programs that mitigate collision risks in urban areas, and informing siting decisions and operation of both terrestrial and offshore wind farms.
This presentation will be paired with insights from Ross Ellet, a local 13ABC meteorologist from Toledo, who will provide additional context on how weather patterns and forecasting intersect with bird migration at a regional scale, offering a complementary local meteorological perspective to the BirdCast team’s national research. BSBO staff members Gautam Apte and Ryan Jacob will join the discussion to share how this information is used for BSBO's Morning Flight Count and Navarre Marsh Banding Station.
Each spring and fall billions of migratory birds migrate across the contiguous United States. These movements occur mostly at night and are therefore largely invisible to human observers. BirdCast.org is a collaborative research project and outreach platform managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for observing and forecasting migration using the NEXRAD weather radar network. BirdCast’s migration dashboard provides near-real time data on bird densities, passage rates, flight altitudes, speed and direction. Using machine learning models, historical radar data are combined with weather prediction models, providing forecasts of migration intensity several days in advance. Ross and Adriaan will discuss how we use the historical NEXRAD archive to assess long-term changes in migratory patterns in response to global environmental changes, such as population declines, phenology shifts and return rates. They will also discuss how our interdisciplinary work not only advances our understanding of avian migration, but also informs conservation efforts, such as “lights out” programs that mitigate collision risks in urban areas, and informing siting decisions and operation of both terrestrial and offshore wind farms.
This presentation will be paired with insights from Ross Ellet, a local 13ABC meteorologist from Toledo, who will provide additional context on how weather patterns and forecasting intersect with bird migration at a regional scale, offering a complementary local meteorological perspective to the BirdCast team’s national research. BSBO staff members Gautam Apte and Ryan Jacob will join the discussion to share how this information is used for BSBO's Morning Flight Count and Navarre Marsh Banding Station.
About adriaan dokter
I’m an ecologist with a background in physics, with an interest in animal movement, foraging and population ecology. My research bridges the disciplines of movement ecology, population ecology, meteorology and computer science, addressing questions on the effects of global change on the distribution and population sizes of migratory birds. At the Cornell Lab of Ornithology I lead the BirdCast program and study the migration corridors of small songbirds at the scale of a full continent, a perspective that has recently come into reach through the use of meteorological weather radar networks in animal migration studies, as well as large-scale citizen science projects. I use weather radar networks as well as individual tags to address questions in migration ecology, including when and where birds migrate, when and where birds die within the annual cycle, and how shifting patterns in mortality and recruitment of young birds cause bird abundances to change. I also develop software tools for biologists using weather radar as a tool in their research, including the R-package bioRad for biological analysis of weather radar data. |
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