Derivation of aerial insect concentration with a 94 GHz FMCW cloud radar

Abstract

Aerial insects are vital for nature and society. Though methods to observe flying insects have consistently improved in the last decades, insects remain difficult to monitor systematically and consistently over large spatial and temporal scales. Remote sensing with radars has proved to be one of the more effective tools for observation. However, as radars are most sensitive to targets similar in size to the radar wavelength, the detectable sub-group of aerial insects of a certain size range depends on the employed radar. Here, we present a novel method based on data of a zenith-pointing W-band (94 GHz, lambda = 0.32 cm) Doppler cloud radar to estimate insect concentration in a vertical profile. Multiple meteorological state-of-the-art algorithms are combined to extract insect signals from the radar data and quantify their abundance from 50m to 1000m above the ground. For evaluation, this method is applied to Doppler cloud radar data from a summertime 30 day observation period in central Germany. Results are compared to data from an X-band (9.4 GHz, lambda = 3.2 cm) radar in the same region. Aerial insect concentration derived from the W-band radar, which is sensitive to insects in the mm size range, is substantially higher than from the X-band radar, detecting insects in the cm size range. In addition, diel flight timings vary between the different sub-groups of aerial insects observed by the two radar instruments. With its superior sensitivity to smaller insects like aphids, the proposed methodology complements existing entomological radar techniques and contributes to achieving a more complete description of aerial insect activity.