CREWS and MApCO2 operations: timing and logistics

I have packed up my field equipment and instruments and shipped it (with Mike Shoemaker's help) to Saipan.  The shipment was collected from AOML on April 4th and delivered to DEQ on April 9th.

I have also submitted two dive plans to our UM DSO.  The first covers diving operations to involve only Miami folks, the second is a joint operation between the Universities of Miami and Hawai`i.  Initially we were going to involve Saipan divers as well but we could not easily determine how to arrange for reciprocity among our three institutions.

As hoped, David Benavente (CRM) will be coming back to Saipan for at least part (and perhaps all) of the period we will be working on the station.  Also, Gordon Walker and Joe Gilmore (PacIOOS) will be traveling from Honolulu to take part in the aforementioned UM/UH diving operations.  They will be carrying the PacIOOS CTD with them so that it can be deployed again with the rest of the CREWS equipment.  Gordon and Joe will be arriving Sunday night, April 28th and leaving Thursday morning, May 2nd.

Ryan Okano and John Iguel of DEQ have also been providing much-needed information for planning our diving and boating operations.

We are all ready to go!

Mike J+

the MApCO2 side of our upcoming operations

AOML currently has multiple research interests related to Saipan, CREWS and MApCO2.  Derek Manzello has provided this background about why he and Ian Enochs will be coming to Saipan to meet with people and conduct site surveys for a possible MApCO2 buoy deployment:

NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program is currently in the process of implementing their National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan (NCRMP). NCRMP calls for sustained monitoring of biological, climate, and socio-economic metrics at all US coral reefs. The end goal is that every four years, based on NCRMP data collection, the Coral Reef Conservation Program will provide a report card to congress on the state of US coral reefs. This report card will replace the previous 'State of the US coral reefs' report some of you may be aware of.

At AOML, we developed and are leading the in situ climate monitoring portion of NCRMP. The NCRMP climate monitoring plan calls for establishment of three sentinel (or class III) sites in the Atlantic and Pacific basins where high-resolution monitoring of climate change variables (mainly temperature and CO2) will be made. Based on the successful installation of the ICON/CREWS pylon in 2011 and our ongoing relationship with local partners, Saipan has been identified as a potential candidate for establishment of one of these sentinel climate monitoring sites.

If Saipan is chosen as one of the three sentinel climate monitoring sites in the Pacific, this would result in the collection of valuable data on the risk and impacts that Saipan's coral reefs face, or are experiencing, from climate change and ocean acidification. One of the ways this information is collected, is the installation of a MApCO2 buoy (see the following website for data from one of the sentinel sites recently established in the Florida Keys: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Cheeca+Rocks).

Thus, for our trip at the end of April, myself and another colleague, Ian Enochs, would like to do a site survey in Lao Lao Bay to 1) determine if this is a suitable site for deployment of a MApCO2 buoy and 2) identify a location where the buoy could be deployed. After completion of this site survey, we would like to complete a CaCO3 budget survey -- this would involve transect monitoring at six sites within Lao Lao Bay where we would make measurements of corals and bioeroders to estimate current rates of CaCO3 production and loss (methodology from Perry et al. 2012).

In total, this work would require approximately 3-4 days of SCUBA in Lao Lao, assuming 3 tanks per day. We likely could complete our work quicker, but want to be conservative in the estimation of our possible needs.

[posted by Mike J+]

revival plan: April 24th - May 1st

Agreement has been reached on the dates for bringing the CREWS station at Lao Lao Bay back online.

Derek Manzello, Ian Enochs and myself (all of AOML and the University of Miami) will leave Miami on Monday, April 22nd and return May 2nd (Manzello, Enochs) and 3rd (Jank+).  This should give us five full days of field time together with Steven Johnson of DEQ/Saipan.

We may also have visits from David Benavente (CRM/Saipan, currently at school on Guam) and possibly one or more people from PacIOOS at the University of Hawai`i.

Mike J+

PacIOOS CTD returns to Hawai`i

The situation:  a decision has been made that I will travel to Saipan to work with Steven Johnson and David Benavente on the reinstallation of the CREWS station in Lao Lao Bay.  Meanwhile, Derek Manzello and Ian Enochs (both of AOML and the University of Miami) have an interest in Lao Lao or other sites in Saipan for a potential deployment of a MApCO2 (Moored Autonomous pCO2) buoy, and wish to conduct some site surveys in the area.  A plan is coming together for the three of us to travel to Saipan, possibly in April.

Meanwhile we would like to redeploy with a functional PacIOOS CTD.  With Gordon Walker's (PacIOOS, University of Hawai`i) assistance and his FedEx account, I have shipped the PacIOOS CTD back to Honolulu.  It was collected from AOML on January 24th and delivered to UH on January 25th.

Gordon will be sending the CTD back to SeaBird for evaluation and repair, in order to have it returned and ready for deployment in April.

Mike J+

decision: Jank+will travel from Miami

Jim Hendee (AOML/Miami) and Fran Castro (DEQ/Saipan) have jointly decided that it would be best if I (Mike Jankulak) travel to Saipan to work in person with David Benavente (CRM) and Steven Johnson (DEQ), among others.

A message to this effect from Fran says, in part:

Situations have changed with some of the guys but we want to continue to maintain the station. I discussed with my staff and they are very interested in getting time for training so it would be ideal if Mike can come out. I have cc'd Steven Johnson who you can work with regarding Mike's visit, so just contact him in the future and keep me in the loop. Spring to summer might be the best time.

status update on Miami testing ops

I am finishing up my in-depth test of the Saipan brain. One thing I've learned is that the serial ports (SIO4s) apparently got corrupted during one of the power outages. The SIO4s can store strings for me, containing commands to send to the instruments. I used to use those strings a lot more but after we migrated to the CR1000 loggers I started coding them into the logger program itself, which makes things more dynamic and easier to update. However, the BICs and the GroundTruth CT still used some SIO4 strings. I think this might help explain some other phenomena I've seen in the past during power failures, like at Jamaica in 2008 when all of the BICs went silent after an extended power failure (this has been otherwise inexplicable because the Jamaica DBJM1 CREWS station was lost before we could examine the equipment after the power outage).

Anyhow I'm trying to toughen up the logger program a bit by eliminating the last of those SIO4 strings and consolidating its filter strings. This enhancement will be rolled out to Puerto Rico in a few weeks, to Saipan when we reinstall, and perhaps to St. Croix next April/May. This is why I have two test brains running now, one on the roof (since Jan 4th) and one on my workbench.

I put the Saipan brain up on the roof for a few days (January 10th - 15th) to verify that its connections to the batteries and solar panels are okay, and to test the analog met sensors/wiring.

My assumption is that we will be shipping everything but the PacIOOS CTD to Saipan, shortly.  At that point either I can work with Steven and David remotely, or if we all decide it is best, I can visit Saipan some time in April/May to walk them through any still-unfamiliar procedure step-by-step in person.

Mike J+

update on PacIOOS CTD data corruption

At the suggestion of SeaBird (via Gordon Walker), I manually reset the CTD's "sample number" to something reasonable and tried downloading its stored data again.  This does not appear to have produced any more data than previous attempts.

So in terms of direct downloads from the CTD, we have data from August 23rd to September 6th, 2011.  We are missing data from that point until the following year, September 27th, 2012.

In terms of data reported to the station, we have the initial period through October 4th, and a set dating from March 19th to July 19th, 2012.

Mike J+