[n.b. This is a backdated post, part of a May/2014 blog catchup.
This post's content is based in part on an email composed on December 5th, 2013, and also describes the station's complete failure of communications that had occurred a few days earlier.]
Marlon Hibbert and José Sanchez visited the CREWS station on December 3rd, 2013. In the wake of that visit Marlon wrote me with questions about two instruments that were found in the vicinity of the station, instruments that he had not previously noticed. One was said to be attached to the station's support chains and labeled #1254 and the other was close to a coral head to the west of the station, labeled #1258.
These standalone or "hobo" temperature sensors were not directly related to the CREWS (Coral Reef Early Warning System) program, but were part of AOML's larger CHAMP (Coral Health and Monitoring Program) activities. Another of our operations is under the auspices of NCRMP (National Coral Reef Monitoring Program) which monitors a large number of sites at coral reef ecosystems throughout the Gulf of Mexico, Coastal Florida, the Caribbean and the world. In this case the NCRMP team had deployed some new sensors at the station site without keeping the CREWS team in the loop, and so our local colleagues could not be alerted to these developments beforehand. I thanked Marlon for his report and assured him that the sensors were part of NOAA operations.
In more serious news, the station has ceased communications completely as of December 1st, 2013. There is no obvious explanation for this failure, so we are left with the usual possibilities, which mainly involve various types of power failure or a GOES transmitter failure. It does not seem likely that the problem stems from a flooded instrument because usually we see at least a few hours of sharply dropping voltage reports when that happens. But given the power problems we've seen to one degree or another dating back to November of 2012, this failure of communications does not come as a complete surprise.
As resolved last August, on our next visit we will attempt to fix the power problem by installing new batteries. This next trip is expected to take place in early-to-mid 2014.
(signed)
Mike Jankulak