Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from Southeast Alaska and British Columbia

Mechanical bathythermograph data from the ACONA vessel captures temperature-depth profiles of the upper ocean layers. The dataset covers coastal waters of Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and the North Pacific Ocean over a six-year period. It was processed and standardized by the National Oceanographic Data Center.

Use Cases

• Analyzing thermal stratification in the upper 285 meters of the ocean using paired temperature-depth values.
• Investigating seasonal or interannual temperature changes in coastal waters from 1961 to 1967.
• Correlating cruise-specific oceanographic conditions with recorded date, position, and time for each observation.
• Studying the format and application of historical NODC standard C128 data for mechanical bathythermograph instruments.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128) ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides a multi-year temporal record from 1961-05-24 to 1967-02-27 for time-series analysis.
• Temperature data is recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating profile comparisons.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and license are unavailable across all sources.
• Instrument limitation restricts observations to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters, capturing only the upper ocean.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Data gathered using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1961-05-24 to 1967-02-27

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:47:30.446973

Geography

Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, North Pacific Ocean