Nadja Weisshaupt currently works at the Finnish Meteorological Institute and is specialized in the study of large-scale animal movement, including birds, insects and bats, through weather radar. Thanks to the network operation of 70 of these radars, unprecedented data on aerofauna can be obtained, both at a regional and continental level.
Although the use of radars for these purposes dates back to the 1960s, technological improvement allows nowadays quantitative data, that is, biomass, to be obtained much more reliably than then. However, the use of weather radars has some weak points, without going any further, the specific-level identification of all these animals. It is for this reason that Nadja is investigating how to integrate the data generated by citizen science projects throughout Europe, which do allow identification at a specific level, with those obtained thanks to weather radars.
On the other hand, the GloBAM project, in which Nadja participates, also aims to identify the incidence of factors such as weather, habitat, artificial lighting or wind turbine installations in the observed biomass flow patterns of aerial migrants.
