For those of you interested in the availability of Canadian radar, here are
the transcripts from my communication with Environment Canada:
*
My original inquiry:*
Hello,
I'm a researcher in New Jersey, USA, and I'm working with NEXRAD radar in an
attempt to quantify bird migration. Is Type II NEXRAD data available from
Canadian radar stations? Also, is there a website that serves up
non-filtered NEXRAD imagery, such that birds can be detected?
*Their response:*
Thank you for sending your message to Environment Canada. I contacted our
radar expert and here's his reply regarding the tracking of bird migration
with our weather radars:
"1) Much of the literature is based on American weather radar which use a
different technology from Canada. Our radars see birds less than the
American weather radars, which is good from the perspective of weather
application, but less good from a biologists point of view.
2) The data is semi-quantitative, in the sense that we can say "a lot of
birds today", or "few birds today". We can try to say there are XXX birds
per hour migrating but there are large uncertainty in the estimates.
Nonetheless some biologist have seen interesting things in our weather
radar data, such as days when migrating birds completely over flew the
Toronto area (from NY to Muskoka) with few surface observations in GTA. The
biologists need to understand the advantages and limitations before
investing too much time.
We could provide samples of bird migration images, but interpreting them is
not obvious to someone who does not have substantial training in radar. As
part of Environment Canada we are encouraged to promote extra uses for our
data, but we need to balance that against time taken away from our specific
jobs in meteorology."
He also mentioned that you can contact him directly if you want more
information. His name is Norman Donaldson and his email is
norman.donald...@ec.gc.ca
Best regards,
Bernard Duguay
Meteorological Inquiry Specialist
MSC National Inquiry Response Team ISO 9001:2008
Environment Canada
*And my follow up question (still awaiting reply):*
Norman
Thank you so much for getting back to me regarding the radar. So as I
understand it, you are filtering non-weather data from your NEXRAD imagery,
in an attempt to only display weather-based returns on the reflectivity
imagery. I can absolutely understand the rationale behind that. Here in the
US the same process is done to varying degrees (depending on the outlet for
the imagery). It is my understanding, though, that the Level II NEXRAD
imagery is not filtered, and therefore represents the "raw" imagery which
can then be filtered and classified according to the needs of the
researcher. I have been using the commercially available radar imagery to
get an "idea" of bird migration over the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic US to
use on my website (www.woodcreeper.com) where I make predictions about the
birding conditions following the migration flight each night during spring
and fall. In the future I am planning to use the Level II data to actually
extract density and velocity data in order to quantify bird migration for
specific locations. This work has been done before, and I plan to expand on
it for the region I am interested in. There have been several people working
on such projects locally, and a couple of them have expressed interest in
having more complete coverage to include the boreal forests extending into
Canada.
So, is it possible to get something equivalent to the Level II NEXRAD for
Canada? And also, could you provide some insight on what you filter out of
the data that is currently displayed at commercial outlets?
Thanks so much for your help.
Kind Regards,
David
____________________________________________________
David A. La Puma, Ph.D.
Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, & Natural Resources
Online Teaching Portfolio:
http://www.woodcreeper.com/teaching
Lockwood lab:
http://rci.rutgers.edu/~jlockwoo <http://rci.rutgers.edu/%7Ejlockwoo>
Websites:
http://www.woodcreeper.com
http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com
Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcreeper
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Bryan Guarente <dafekt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jeff and others,
> Unless others know a source, I am unaware of anywhere that one can get
> unfiltered Canadian radar data. Unlike the US, Environment Canada/
> Meteorological Service of Canada data is private.
>
> However, I am working with some Environment Canada people right now to see
> if there is a source available for this that I might be able to make
> available, or that is already available.
>
> I'll keep you posted.
>
> Bryan Guarente
> Instructional Designer
> The COMET Program
> University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
> Boulder, CO
>
>
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