Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba NMP Station A Red Sea Latitude:   29.4667     Longitude:   34.9167 Associated Investigators: Yonathan Shaked , Amatzia Genin   Related Web Sites: [Israel National Monitoring Program at the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba]   Israel's national monitoring program (NMP) monitors habitats at the northern end of the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba (Red Sea), within Israel's borders. The program initiated in 2003 by Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection to provide administrators with scientific data. The Gulf is a deep narrow basin, surrounded by arid landmass. SST reach ~28 C in summer but, uniquely, the deep waters are always ~21 C, forcing a low SST limit that accommodates some of the world's northernmost coral reefs. Winter cooling promotes water column mixing, sometimes deeper than 800m, that supply scarce nutrients to the upper waters. The NMP's scope includes both deep and shallow habitats: monthly cruises sample the water column (to >700m depth) and shallow waters along the Israeli coast. Reefs and other shallow habitats are surveyed annually and various supplementary measurements aid data analyses. An annual report (Hebrew, English abstract and figure legends) and all data are available online at the (Related Web Sites) link above.