Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from Alaska Research Cruises

A 15-year collection of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data from the NOAA research vessel ALASKA, spanning from November 1952 to March 1967. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It covers the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of California, Gulf of Mexico, and North Pacific Ocean, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing upper ocean thermal structure using temperature-depth value pairs.
• Studying historical sea surface temperature trends in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea using cruise-based observations.
• Mapping spatial variability of subsurface temperatures across the North Pacific Ocean using geolocated profile data.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model outputs for the 1950s-1960s period with in-situ instrument data.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent 15-year time series from a single research vessel, enabling longitudinal analysis.
• Data is processed to a standardized NODC format (C128), ensuring structural consistency across profiles.
• Includes precise geospatial and temporal metadata (cruise information, date, position, time) for each observation.

Limitations

• Data is limited to the upper 285 meters of the ocean, restricting analysis of deeper water columns.
• Sources conflict on row count, size, license, and author information, with all platforms reporting these as unknown or null.
• The dataset's age (1952-1967) may limit direct comparison with modern high-resolution sensor data.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from NODC.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument on NOAA research vessel ALASKA and processed to NODC standard C128 format.

Time Range

1952-11-07 to 1967-03-11

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:43:33.651669

Geography

Caribbean Sea, Gulf of California, Gulf of Mexico, North Pacific Ocean