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Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
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The National Undersea Research Program actively conducts reef restoration projects and conducts research within marine reserves and among deep water reefs.
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The Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) drives NOAA’s research on atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, including climate variability, ocean currents and coastal ecosystem health. OAR’s research network includes 12 internal research laboratories, 30 National Sea Grant Programs, six centers for the National Undersea Research Program (NURP), a grants program through the Office of Global Programs, and 11 cooperative institutes with academia.
OAR fulfills several strategic research and monitoring objectives of the Coral Reef Task Force’s National Action Plan to Conserve Coral Reefs. For instance, the NURP center for the Southeast U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico conducts ongoing monitoring research on reef fish ecology and management of fishery resources, as well as conservation of the Florida Keys’ coral reefs. NURP’s Caribbean Marine Research Center (CMRC) is active in coral reef restoration efforts and conducts research within marine reserves and among deep water reefs. Sea Grant programs in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas and California also actively support local coral reef research and plan to support additional coral reef-related research projects in the future.
Professional Development
Monitoring
Professional Development
OAR’s Coral Health and Monitoring Program (CHAMP), which originated in 1994 and is managed by the Atlantic and Oceanographic Meterological Laboratory (AOML), is the agency’s home base from which coral reef information is collected and distributed. As an information repository, CHAMP supports a Web page and a listserver forum for the professional exchange of coral reef ideas and research. The program also provides literature abstracts on coral reef health and monitoring, historical oceanographic and coral reef data, technical support for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Program, and information on techniques for screening and interpreting in situ coral reef data. Through CHAMP, AOML will continue to facilitate national and international coral reef information exchange.
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An aerial view of the Bahamas. One priority of the Coral Reef Watch program is to expand the network of CREWS monitoring stations in the area.
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Monitoring
OAR’s most visible coral reef research program is Coral Reef Watch (CRW), jointly managed by AOML in Miami, Fla., and the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). CRW consolidates the coral reef research efforts of both offices and strives to monitor and predict changes in coral reef ecosystems on a worldwide scale.
AOML has developed a Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) to facilitate coral reef monitoring. The international network of coral reef monitoring stations that comprise CREWS are placed at reef locations to monitor conditions, such as air temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, sea temperature, salinity, and tide level. In near real-time, the monitoring stations can provide hourly information to researchers about conditions that may be conducive to reef bleaching. CREWS also provides data for coral reef ecosystem modeling and other research efforts. NESDIS uses CREWS data to help confirm its own satellite-derived data, which in turn helps OAR to understand coral reef bleaching on a larger spatial scale and at remote locations.
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A CREWS station onsite, transmitting data. The CREWS system conducts real-time monitoring of environmental data from coral reef areas.
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With the help of NURP’s CMRC, the first CREWS testbed station was installed at Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas. A second is being installed in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. In keeping with the National Action Plan, OAR and NESDIS plan to expand the network of CREWS stations in the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa to include 18 stations by 2006. Over the next year, new and existing CREWS stations will be fitted with additional sensors, including carbon dioxide sensors, and realtime video. In addition, bleaching event maps will be created in geographic information system format, and high resolution satellite data will be used to assess bleaching events.
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