Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS ABBOT

Over 9,000 temperature-depth profile pairs were collected by the USS ABBOT using a mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument. The data, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), covers the Caribbean Sea, North Atlantic, and North Pacific from 1951 to 1961. This dataset provides a detailed record of the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers during the mid-20th century.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature trends in the upper 285 meters of the ocean across three major ocean basins.
• Studying the vertical thermal structure of the ocean using uniform 5-meter depth interval measurements.
• Correlating oceanographic conditions with specific cruise dates, positions, and times reported for each observation.
• Investigating seasonal or interannual variability in sea surface and subsurface temperatures from 1951 to 1961.

Strengths

• Data is structured to the NODC standard C128 format, ensuring consistency for historical comparison.
• Provides a decadal time series of ocean temperature data from 1951-04-17 to 1961-03-06.
• Each observation includes associated metadata: cruise information, date, geographic position, and time.

Limitations

• The maximum observation depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Key technical details such as row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided in the available metadata.
• The license and original data author are listed as unknown, which may affect clarity on usage rights.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), from USS ABBOT.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) and processed by NODC to the C128 standard format.

Time Range

1951-04 17 to 1961-03-06

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:05:31.982325

Geography

Caribbean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean