Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from ALAMINOS Cruises

Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and multiple ocean basins are covered by this dataset of historical mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) observations from the research vessel ALAMINOS. It contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to approximately 285 meters, processed by the NODC into the standard C128 format. Data collection occurred between February 1965 and June 1968.

Use Cases

• Analyzing upper ocean thermal structure using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying historical sea surface temperature variability across the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
• Investigating cruise-based oceanographic conditions via reported cruise information, date, position, and time.
• Calibrating or validating ocean models with in-situ temperature profile data from the 1960s.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a recognized standard format (NODC C128).
• Provides a multi-year time series covering a 3.5-year period from 1965 to 1968.
• Covers a geographically broad scope across five distinct ocean regions.

Limitations

• Key technical details are missing, including row count, column names, and exact file size.
• The MBT instrument limits observations to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters, restricting analysis to the upper ocean.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata exists between platforms (2026 vs. 1968).

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the research vessel ALAMINOS and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1965-02-03 to 1968-06-29

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:09:10.798813

Geography

Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean