[Coral-List] New ICON/CREWS Station at La Parguera, Puerto Rico

[Jim Hendee]

Greetings!

    I am very pleased to announce the installation and operation of the 
new Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) station (part of the 
Integrated Coral Observing Network, ICON) at 17deg 52.326' N,  67deg 
03.128' W, at the Media Luna Reef in the La Parguera Marine Reserve in 
southwest Puerto Rico.  The station data can be chosen from the Web page 
at http://www.coral.noaa.gov/crw/real_data.shtml (choose La Parguera 
from the scroll down menu).  The data are collected hourly and presented 
once a day in the morning as last-72 hour pages, and also throughout the 
day as last-12 hour pages.  These are the parameters currently being 
reported:

    Date and time
    Air temperature (two different instruments)
    Barometric pressure (ditto)
    Wind speed and gust (ditto)
    Relative humidity
    Rain amount
    Rain duration
    Rain intensity
    Light at surface (10 m above) and near-bottom (shallow sensor 
currently inoperable)
        PAR
        UV (305, 330, and 380 nm)
    Sea temperature (nominal 1m and near-bottom, see instrument depth 
columns)
    Salinity (ditto)

    Instruments to be installed later this year include a pCO2 sensor, a 
water sampler, a miniature fiber optic spectrometer for calculating 
Saharan Dust Index, a transmissometer, and an underwater Web camera 
(much like the one previously installed at the St. Croix station).

    The station also serves as a lighted navigational marker serving to 
mark safe entry into the embayment of the La Parguera area.

    All data from this station will be quality controlled at a later 
time and will be available through the  CREWS pages, and through NOAA's 
Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS) at http://www.coris.noaa.gov.  
These data will also be used in the new near real-time ICON expert 
system, currently under development, for integrating satellite, in situ 
and other data.

    This station has been funded through NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation 
Program, and is being operated cooperatively with the University of 
Puerto Rico's Department of Marine Science (Magueyes Island Research 
Station, http://cima.uprm.edu/magueyes.html) for the benefit of 
researchers worldwide, and for the new  NOAA/UPR collaborative effort, 
the Caribbean Coral Reef Institute 
(http://www.cop.noaa.gov/ecosystems/coralreefs/current/ccri-factsheet-cr.html).

    Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

    Sincerely yours,

    Jim Hendee
      and the CREWS/ICON team:  Jules Craynock, Louis Florit, Mike 
Shoemaker, Jeff Absten, Mike Jankulak, Hector Casanova, Chris Langdon, 
John Halas, Erik Stabenau, Jeff Judas, Scott Stolz, Emy Roque-Rodriguez, 
and many other friends and colleagues.