Ceilometer Dedication Ceremony
Dedication ceremony at UMBC on Earth Day (April 22) to celebrate the transfer of our Lufft CHZ 15K Ceilometer to the Navajo Technical University (NTU) in Crownpoint, New Mexico, under the attached MOU between UMBC and NTU. This is one of three instruments acquired under my NASA grant to collect and calculate with our machine learning algorithms the planetary boundary layer heights (pblh) over the continental US from the aerosol concentration heights deduced from the backscatter off Lidar pulses at 1064 nm every 5 seconds up to 15km in the atmosphere. The citing at NTU serves a dual purpose. First, it provides us with real time scientifically important edge streaming data for calculating the pblh from a US site that experiences the effect of severe dust bowl like events (see attached image), and can detect smoke from California wildland fires that can travel across the US and influence our local air quality by penetrating the pblh. Second, it affords UMBC the opportunity to share our expertise in training the Navajo nation students in the use of AI for inferring live scientific events as the occur in real time.