[Coral-List] New--Integrated Monitoring Network: SEAKEYS, CREWS data online

[Jim Hendee]

Greetings Coral-Listers,

We are pleased to announce the online Integrated Monitoring Network 
(IMN) Database and Application is now online at the Coral Health and 
Monitoring Program Website, hosted from NOAA/AOML in Miami, Florida.  
Link:  http://www.coral.noaa.gov/imn/IMNQuery  (and also available from 
the main CHAMP Website).

IMN provides researchers, Marine Park Area managers, and the public with 
the ability to access meteroglogical and oceanographic environmental 
datasets from various networks of stations located around the world.

This release version of the database contains data from the Florida 
Institute of Oceanography's (FIO) and NOAA's SEAKEYS project (Sustained 
Ecological Research Related to the Management of the Florida Keys 
Seascape), and the NOAA/AOML CREWS (Coral Reef Early Warning System) 
network of stations.

The SEAKEYS network has been operating and collecting data since 1992 
from the Florida Keys, located at Fowey Rocks, Long Key, Molasses Reef, 
Sombrero Reef, Sand Key, and Dry Tortugas stations.  (FIO also operates 
a station in NW Florida Bay in cooperation with the University of South 
Florida's COMPS Program.)

The CREWS network has been operating since 2001 with stations located at 
Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas (Rainbow Gardens) and the Salt River Bay 
National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (NPS) in St. Croix, 
U.S. Virgin Islands.  The CREWS Network is being constructed in response 
to a US Coral Reef Task Force goal of establishing long-term datasets 
for all major US coral reef areas.

The multitude of instruments installed to these stations reveals a wide 
spread of types of data available such as air temperature, wind speed, 
wind direction, barometric pressure, conductivity, sea temperature, 
salinity, fluorometry, transmissometry, PAR and UVB values.  New 
instruments being installed at selected locations will measure 
PAM-fluorometry, pCO2, current velocity and direction, and other paramters.

The historical datasets described here are available through December, 
2002.  Also available are the usual daily output of hourly raw data from 
these stations; they can be accessed via the main CHAMP Website at 
http://www.coral.noaa.gov  (see left side of Page under "Data").

Data Quality Control Notes:  Oceanographic data provided through the IMN 
database are considered PRELIMINARY and have been screened minimally for 
accuracy. NOAA can not be held liable for use of these raw data in a 
manner other than for perusal of preliminary oceanographic data for 
scientific research on coral reefs.  However, because the monitoring 
networks have field personnel assigned to maintenance of the stations, 
we expect the quality to be mostly very good.  An additional release 
version will be announced at the Website.  New release versions will 
contain annotated, final quality controlled data, as well as complete 
metadata records.  All of these data will soon become part of NOAA's 
Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS:  http://www.coris.noaa.gov), which 
will contain the best available coral reef data that NOAA has to offer.

For additional information on the IMN architecture and data, please 
contact the IMN Database Administrator, Louis Florit 
<Louis.Florit at noaa.gov>.  For comments or questions concerning the 
Website front-end, please contact Monika Gurnee <Monika.Gurnee at noaa.gov>.

    Cheers,
    Louis Florit, IMN Database Admin
    Monika Gurnee, Website Admin
    Clarke Jeffris, Systems Admin
    Jim Hendee, CHAMP Admin