Student Hands-on Atmospheric Discovery during an Eclipse (SHADE) over Texas
Découverte pratique de l'atmosphère par les élèves pendant une éclipse (SHADE) au-dessus du Texas
Garza, Audrey ; Liu, Chuntao ; Lavigne, Thomas ; Morvais, Florian ; Walker, Quincy ; Ana, Hailey Santa ; Rossilli, Jerricca ; Peters, Delaynie ; Meade, Carl ; Camacho, Juan ; Walter, Paul
On 8 April 2024, a total solar eclipse overpassed Texas in the southern portion of the United States. To monitor the impact of the total solar eclipse, a group of students from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi developed two weather balloon payloads and six ground-based instrument packages using microcontrollers and low-cost sensors. These instrument packages were deployed to six different sites spanning nearly 600?km along the total eclipse path from the Mexican border to North Texas. During the total eclipse, air temperature decreased, and relative humidity increased consistently at all six stations due to the reduction in sensible heating. The dewpoint temperatures decreased at the near surface at all sites likely due to the reduction in evaporation. Five of the six ground stations observed a slight dampening of the wind speed, and two of the six stations recorded significant counterclockwise wind shifts. No consistent pattern was observed in the surface vertical electric field at the six ground stations. The two balloon payloads captured the damping of the visible and ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere throughout the event. Though a slight decrease in both temperature and ozone in the lower stratosphere was observed after the totality, it is difficult to determine the impact from the eclipse on the ozone mixing ratio and dynamics in the lower stratosphere from only a few vertical profiles. For the students who participated, this field campaign has provided invaluable experiences in instrumentation, fieldwork, and data collection.</p>
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