Education and Outreach using the MicroPulse Differential Absorption Lidars (MPD) and NYSM Profiler Network before, during, and after the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

2024年北美日全食将开辟一条从德克萨斯州到新英格兰的全食之路，为数百万美国人提供直接观测罕见天体和大气事件的机会。 该项目将利用公众对日食的兴趣，开展一项以教育和推广为重点的观测活动，测量大气对日全食的反应。 本科生将参加一个科学领域的运动，利用国家的最先进的分析仪器，并随后在课堂环境中分析这些数据。 将与K-12学生和公众开展外联活动，包括发射气象气球。日全食提供了一个自然实验，以评估当太阳辐射减少时大气层会发生什么变化。 为了测量大气对2024年日食的响应，研究团队将部署三个微脉冲差分吸收激光雷达（MPD），它们可以连续测量低层大气中的温度和水蒸气，并在2024年4月的整个月份进行每日气象气球发射。 MPD将与其他先进的大气剖面仪共同位于三个纽约州Mesonet（NYSM）站点，其中两个站点沿着全食路径。 该项目的主要目标是利用这个独特的实地项目来培训本科生科学领域的活动，最先进的分析仪器，以及随后的科学数据分析。 测量的辅助科学效益将是交叉验证MPD与其他仪器，并确定测量大气温度和湿度场所需的剖面仪器的最佳组合。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The 2024 North American total solar eclipse will carve a path of totality from Texas to New England, providing millions of Americans with the opportunity to directly observe a rare celestial and atmospheric event. This project will capitalize on public fascination with eclipses to conduct an education and outreach-focused observational campaign that will measure the response of the atmosphere to a total solar eclipse. Undergraduate students will participate in a scientific field campaign making use of state-of-the-art profiling instruments, and subsequently analyze those data in a classroom setting. Outreach activities will be conducted with K-12 students and the general public, including weather balloon launches.Total solar eclipses provide a natural experiment to assess what happens to the atmosphere when solar radiation is reduced. To measure the atmospheric response to the 2024 Eclipse, the research team will deploy three MicroPulse Differential Absorption Lidars (MPDs), which can continuously measure temperature and water vapor in the lower atmosphere, and conduct daily weather balloon launches for the entire month of April 2024. The MPDs will be co-located with other advanced atmospheric profiling instruments at three New York State Mesonet (NYSM) sites, two of which are along the path of totality. The primary project objective is to take advantage of this unique field project to train undergraduate students on scientific field campaigns, state-of-art profiling instruments, and subsequent scientific data analysis. The ancillary scientific benefit of the measurements will be to cross-validate the MPD against other instrumentation and determine the optimal mix of profiling instruments that are needed to measure atmospheric temperature and moisture fields.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.