LPPR1 Seabird Electronic tempearture loggers

Recently, the Coral Reef Early Warning System or CREWs station in La Parguera had two additional instruments on-board to collect data for researches at Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.  Known as Seabird Electronic tempeature loggers (currently in beta field trails), two of these instruments were placed just below the surface and ~18" down to monitor diurnal warming of Parguera's inshore shallow water.  The following summation of their research was written by Xiaofang Zhu a graduate assistant at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science:

Coral reefs are very sensitive to thermal stresses and recent studies have suggested the daily warming phenomenon in the shallow water, along with weekly temperature averages can affect coral bleaching. This study is interested in the detailed physical processes of diurnal warming, including the timing, amplitude and vertical temperature profiles. To reach this goal, a Seabird temperature logger is added along with the existing 2 CTDs to help understand the warming phenomenon at 3 different depths, and to construct a vertical temperature profile.

Below is a graph (click for larger view) of the agreement between the existing CTD temperature sensors and the Seabird Electronics temperature loggers as plotted by Xiaofang.

Unfortunately, both Seabird instruments are not active on the station at this moment due to technical difficulties.  I will keep you posted when they are back on-board the station.

Complete Cleaning in May

Today (Tuesday, May3rd, 2011), a complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) was done at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed on at 0900 and was removed at 1230.  All surface and subsurface sensors were standing proud to the sea.  All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned.  The waters were really clear today which made a clean station look really great.