Historical Japanese Oceanographic Station and Bathythermograph Data

Over 50 Japanese research vessels collected ocean station and bathythermograph data across the East China Sea, Japan Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and South Pacific Ocean from 1973 to 1985. The data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into standard C100 and C125 formats, containing discrete depth measurements primarily from Nansen casts. Principal parameters include temperature and salinity, with additional measurements for dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and pH.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature and salinity profiles at discrete depth levels across the Northwest Pacific.
• Studying the spatial and temporal distribution of dissolved oxygen, phosphate, silicate, nitrate, and nitrite from 1973-1985.
• Investigating cruise-specific metadata, including ship, institution, position, date, and time for each ocean station.
• Correlating oceanographic cast data with reported meteorological conditions like air temperature, pressure, wind, and waves.
• Using the Forel-Ule scale water color observations as auxiliary data for historical water clarity studies.

Strengths

• Data spans a 12-year period from 1973-01-05 to 1985-06-06, providing a multi-decadal historical record.
• Observations were collected by over 50 distinct research vessels, offering wide spatial coverage across six major sea bodies.
• Data is standardized to NODC C100 and C125 formats, ensuring consistency in structure and measurement units.

Limitations

• The exact row count and dataset size are unknown across all provided sources.
• Approximately 5% of the data originates from early electronic CTD/STD recorders, with the majority from bottle casts.
• Sources conflict on the last update date, with one listing 2026-03-05 and another listing the end of the data range, 1985-06-06.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), via NODC processing.

Collection Method

Observations primarily from multi-bottle Nansen casts and other water samplers; a minor portion from early CTD/STD recorders.

Time Range

1973-01-05 to 1985-06-06

Freshness

2026-03-05

Geography

East China Sea, Japan Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, South Pacific Ocean.