NODC Radio Message Bathythermograph Data 1972-1991

NOAA NCEI provides a collection of ocean temperature and depth profiles from bathythermograph casts transmitted via radio message. The data, processed into the IBT/C110 format, were accumulated from ships at sea by U.S. operational centers between 1972 and 1991. This dataset offers a global, near-real-time historical record of upper ocean thermal structure.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical sea surface temperature trends using reported temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean for specific casts.
• Investigating the spatial and temporal coverage of operational ship-based ocean observation networks.
• Comparing near-real-time IBT data profiles with higher-resolution delayed-mode XBT datasets.

Strengths

• Covers a significant 19-year time range from 1972 to 1991.
• Provides global spatial coverage from numerous ship platforms across oceans and seas.
• Data originates from authoritative U.S. operational centers (NOAA NMC and U.S. Navy FNOC).

Limitations

• The IBT/C110 format provides a coarser representation of temperature profiles compared to delayed-mode XBT data due to transmission limits.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are unknown across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, reporting either 1991-01-01 or 2026-03-05.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), formerly National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Collection Method

Data were collected via bathythermograph (BT/XBT) casts from ships, transmitted over the Global Telecommunications System in IGOSS BATHY format, and processed into the NODC IBT/C110 standard format.

Time Range

1972-01-01 to 1991-01-01

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:35:10.262749

Geography

Global coverage across oceans and seas worldwide.