Student Hands-on Atmospheric Discovery during an Eclipse (SHADE) over Texas

Abstract 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. Significance Statement The main purpose of this field campaign is to employ a group of undergraduate and graduate students to use both low-cost and professionally manufactured instruments to construct six mobile weather stations and two weather balloons to measure the atmospheric responses to the total solar eclipse event on 8 April 2024, across Texas. This project provides students invaluable experiences in instrumentation, fieldwork, and data collection. From the initial data, there are a consistent decrease in temperature and dewpoint temperature and an increase in relative humidity at all sites. However, there is no consensus among the different sites in the response of near-surface aerosol concentration and atmospheric electric field to the eclipse. The measurements from two stratospheric balloons show a possible cooling and a decrease in the ozone mixing ratio in the lower stratosphere.