Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS A. C. Cockrell

Mechanical bathythermograph data captures temperature-depth profiles from the USS A. C. Cockrell in the North Pacific Ocean. The dataset contains observations recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal or interannual temperature changes in the North Pacific from 1954-1956.
• Validating or calibrating ocean model simulations for the post-war period.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with observed temperature profiles.

Strengths

• Data is standardized in the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistency.
• Profiles provide uniform observations at precise 5-meter depth intervals.
• Covers a multi-year time range from February 1954 to March 1956.

Limitations

• Instrument limits data to the upper 285 meters of the ocean, excluding deeper layers.
• Key metadata like row count, column names, and license are unavailable across all platforms.
• A conflict exists: the last updated date is reported as 2026-03 05 on Data.gov but 1956-03-31 on NASA Earthdata.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the USS A. C. Cockrell and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1954-02-06 to 1956-03-31

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:53:50.162505

Geography

North Pacific Ocean