[Coral-List] New NOAA Coral Reef Watch Products: New Virtual Stations and Remote Sensing Resources

Mark Eakin Mark.Eakin at noaa.gov
Wed Nov 7 13:28:57 EST 2007


NOAA Coral Reef Watch is pleased to announce two new products now  
available on our website: an experimental expansion of our Satellite  
Bleaching Alert system, and a webpage that links to remote sensing  
datasets for coral reef managers.  Both are available at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/current/ 
experimental_products.html.

Adding to our 24 operational sites, 33 new experimental Virtual  
Stations have been implemented.  These include many locations in the  
Florida Keys, plus the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.  Special focus  
was given to the Centre of Excellence sites designated under the  
World Bank/GEF Coral Reef Targeted Research Program: Zanzibar,  
Tanzania; Puerto Morelos, Mexico; Heron Island, Australia; and  
Bolinao, Philippines.  Each of these sites now has its own webpage,  
with zoomed-in views of the CRW satellite bleaching data products and  
time series graphs.  For all of the new sites, users can sign up for  
Satellite Bleaching Alert e-mails, automatically warning them when  
bleaching conditions change in their location.  These new Virtual  
Stations are currently in an experimental phase, while we continue to  
expand the network.

A new website has also been developed as a data portal to remote  
sensing datasets that are freely available over the web.  The focus  
is on global, near-real-time data that would be useful for coral reef  
managers and researchers around the world: e.g. sea surface  
temperature and thermal stress, ocean surface winds, sea surface  
height anomalies, precipitation, sea surface currents, etc.  We tried  
to include a variety of data formats, including easy-to-use imagery,  
to meet a variety of user needs.  This project is part of the Coral  
Reef Targeted Research (CRTR) Program’s Remote Sensing Working  
Group.  The new resources are available at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/crtr/data_resources.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
------------------------
C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D.
Coordinator, NOAA Coral Reef Watch
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Center for Satellite Applications and Research
Satellite Oceanography & Climate Division
e-mail: mark.eakin at noaa.gov
url: coralreefwatch.noaa.gov

E/RA31, SSMC1, Room 5308
1335 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3226
301-713-2857 x109                   Fax: 301-713-3136





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