Great Frigatebirds and the Planetary Boundary Layer

At December’s 2023 AGU conference, one poster that has generated buzz…or squawks, analyzed the flights of great frigatebirds in the Pacific. The poster, with statistics analyzed and figures generated by BAERI’s Sepideh Khajehei, shows that the high-flying birds likely trace the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL), a low layer of the atmosphere. The PBL fluctuates with the climate, and understanding the changes in its height (with our avian friends’ assistance) can help with weather and climate change predictions. An article related to this research can be found here.