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

2024年的北美日全食将从德克萨斯州到新英格兰开辟一条日全食之路，为数百万美国人提供直接观察罕见的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。本科生将使用最先进的分析仪器参与科学实地活动，随后在课堂环境中分析这些数据。外展活动将与K-12学生和公众一起进行，包括气象气球放飞。日全食提供了一个自然实验来评估当太阳辐射减少时大气会发生什么。为了测量大气对2024年日食的响应，研究小组将部署三个微脉冲差分吸收激光雷达（mpd），可以连续测量低层大气中的温度和水蒸气，并在2024年4月的整个月内每天进行气象气球发射。mpd将与其他先进的大气剖面仪器一起安置在三个纽约州Mesonet （NYSM）站点，其中两个站点位于日全食路径上。该项目的主要目标是利用这一独特的实地项目，培养本科生在科学实地活动、最先进的分析仪器和随后的科学数据分析方面的能力。测量的辅助科学效益将是与其他仪器交叉验证MPD，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。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

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.