USS Vance Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles, 1961

Temperature-depth profiles from mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) casts collected by the USS Vance in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans. The dataset covers a 21-day period from September 19 to October 9, 1961, and was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into its standard C128 format. It provides paired temperature and depth values at uniform 5-meter intervals for studying the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure and temperature gradients of the upper ocean (up to ~285m depth) for a specific cruise.
• Studying historical ocean conditions in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans during September-October 1961.
• Validating or calibrating models of upper ocean heat content using in-situ profile data.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with observed temperature-depth pairs.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides specific temporal coverage (1961-09-19 to 1961-10-09) and spatial coverage (South Pacific and Southern Oceans).
• Temperature values are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating systematic analysis.

Limitations

• The maximum observation depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the upper ocean only.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, license, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• The dataset's age (1961) may present challenges for integration with modern, higher-resolution oceanographic data.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Data collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument casts from the USS Vance and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1961-09-19 to 1961-10-09

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:20:49.937924

Geography

South Pacific Ocean and Southern Ocean