CREWS buoy redeployed, data feeds resume

From examination of the data record, here is a timeline of buoy refurbishment operations:

• 2014-10-14 1800 UTC: buoy towed from its deployment location
• 2014-10-15 1400 UTC: buoy removed from water
• 2014-10-24 1700 UTC: programming updated on both dataloggers
• 2014-10-29 1800 UTC: buoy once again moored at deployment site and fully operational

As of October 31st, 2014, all buoy data feeds are once again operational at AOML.  This includes the near-realtime web reports, the feed to the CHAMP database (as accessible via the CHAMP Portal), and the feed to NDBC's page for this buoy.

(signed)
Mike Jankulak

Data Sharing: CoRIS and NDBC

This is a followup announcement to an earlier post of mine, the one that talked about fully integrating the Little Cayman CREWS station's ocean and light data into CHAMP processing.  These data appear on our web page reports, are loaded into our expert system for ecoforecasting analysis, and are queryable from our CHAMP Portal web site.  Please see this prior post for details on the original causes of the missing ocean/light data and how we worked around it.

One thing that has changed since last month's post is that the concurrency problem with the CHAMP Portal is now resolved.  While there may still be some inefficiencies in serving very large data queries, there is no longer any user concurrency problem.  The CHAMP Portal can be found here:

http://www.coral.noaa.gov/champportal/

Another development is that the CREWS data and metadata reports were submitted to NOAA's Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS) on September 30th, 2014.  This submission covered data collected during the 2013 calendar year, and includes the first report of data from CCMI2 (for a period covering October 23rd through December 31st).

One way to access these data reports is to visit the CoRIS web site:

http://www.coris.noaa.gov/

Once at this site, click on "CoRIS Geoportal Search Tool" (prominently announced in the middle of the page, noted as "New!"), and then as a search term enter "CREWS AND Little Cayman AND 2013" (note that the capitalization of AND is required).

As of this writing this query brings back exactly one record, which is the submitted report for the CCMI2 site for 2013:

http://www.coris.noaa.gov/geoportal/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7B8CB71F6D-1371-43E3-9CC7-C812E95BFAAC%7D

Other 2013 (and 2012) CREWS metadata/data submissions may be found on the CHAMP web site as follows:

http://www.coral.noaa.gov/noaa/coris/2013/
http://www.coral.noaa.gov/noaa/coris/2012/

On another topic, the feed of Little Cayman data from AOML to NDBC has begun, dating back to September 24th.  As is the convention with buoys, the Little Cayman station has been given an all-numeric designation by NWS.  This designation is 42089, although we will continue to use CCMI2 informally.  The NDBC data site can be found here:

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42089

Please note that all of these data submission and feeds -- the CoRIS reports, the NDBC feed, the online CHAMP hourly and daily web reports, and the CHAMP Portal's data archives -- they all include the complete parameter set from the Little Cayman buoy, including the ocean and light data.

(signed) Mike Jankulak

Routine Cleaning

It is time once again for the CREWS buoy routine cleaning.  As you can see in the photos, we stir up quite a mess but it's all in the name of science!  Nothing out of the ordinary was observed and all reported data remains in the expected ranges.

Integration of Ocean and Light Data

It's not gone unnoticed that the light and ocean data from this buoy have until now not been included in AOML's reports and database.  This was due to a miscommunication between AOML, which processes the output of the buoy, and YSI, which created the buoy programming.  AOML's near-real time processing of CREWS data depends on having one hourly summary table with data from all station instruments, but the buoy's current program only provides 10-minute data summaries for light and ocean data and spreads these data summaries across three data tables, one per instrument.

I am in the process of altering the buoy's CRBasic programming to correct this problem.  Once these changes are complete the programs will be handed off to CCMI/LCRC for upload to the buoy.  Very likely this programming update will be timed to coincide with the buoy's annual refurbishment, when it will be brought to shore for cleaning, repainting, and instrumentation swapout.

We always knew that new routines would have to be created to process the first year's worth of buoy data after the fact.  Those routines have now been created, and with their creation it now becomes possible (through a minorly hackish kludge) to process ocean and light data in near-real time as well.

Complete data reports, including light and ocean data, are now available here for the first time:

http://www.coral.noaa.gov/static/data_ccmi2_Web_12.html

See also the links at the bottom of that page for "Detail" reports that include every parameter reported by the buoy, including diagnostics, and also the "Ten-Minute" reports that show some of the higher-frequency data that are summarized in the "Hourly" reports.

The light+ocean data have also been integrated into the "Ecoforecast" expert system that is running on our Gensym/G2 server:

http://ecoforecast.coral.noaa.gov/index/0/CCMI2/station-home

And the light+ocean data are also queryable through our beta-versioned CHAMP Portal product:

http://www.coral.noaa.gov/champportal/

Note that the CHAMP Portal currently has known issues with user concurrency -- only one visitor at a time may run a query, while others who attempt to connect will see a progress message that will remain fixed in place until the first visitor's query has finished.  Developers are hard at work on this issue and we hope to release a fix very soon.

As a final note about CCMI2 data integration, I have now set up a feed of data from this station from AOML to the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC).  As of this writing the feed is undergoing quality assurance on the NDBC end.  I will post an update (including a link) once the feed has gone live on the NDBC web site.

cheers,
Mike J+

Installation of anodes

On our last visit to the buoy we noticed the chains had started to pitt and the anodes were worn.  We have ordered new anodes to be replaced and today we added two 1" shaft anodes to each chain.  We plan to add more anodes to the main structure once they arrive.

Warning of mass bleaching of hard corals

Ecological forecast received from NOAA’s Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) warns of mass bleaching of hard corals.

The warning was issued on Wednesday, 2014-Aug-13 as a result of high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) recorded at the ICON Reef station in Little Cayman (LCIY2) just offshore from the Central Caribbean Marine Institute.

PALE BUT NOT BLEACHED: Researchers today documented individual colonies with yellow and pale yellow colorations along the inner shelf of Grape Tree Bay (<3m depth) near the CREWS buoy.  Early indicator species are the Orbicella (formerly Montastraea) faveolata, O. annularis, and the agariciids. A single colony of Pseudodiploria (formerly Diploria) strigosa with pale coloration was observed adjacent to a colony with normal coloration (see picture). Although individual corals were pale, neither mass bleaching nor whole colony bleaching (i.e. white tissue) were observed.

DARK SPOTS: Individual Siderastrea siderea colonies were mottled or beginning to show signs of dark spots.
It is estimated that 5-10% of the above mentioned species were discolored.  All other species observed appeared normal in color.  Dive computer temperatures indicated 86°F at Grape Tree Bay.

Calm waters surrounding the Little Cayman CREWS this week.  Our new OA lab is screaming busy with three simulation experiments running around the clock. (in the background)