[Coral-List] New ICON/CREWS Station at La Parguera, Puerto Rico
Jim Hendee
Jim.Hendee at noaa.gov
Sun Jan 15 19:59:43 EST 2006
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.
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