Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from the Bay of Fundy and North Atlantic

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data captures temperature-depth profiles from multiple ships in the Bay of Fundy and North Atlantic Ocean during 1969. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the C128 standard format, provides paired temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to approximately 285 meters. It includes cruise information, date, position, and time for each observation.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying spatial and temporal variability of sea surface temperatures and subsurface layers in the North Atlantic.
• Validating or calibrating historical oceanographic models for the Bay of Fundy region.
• Correlating cruise track positions and times with contemporaneous atmospheric or ocean current data.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard (NODC C128 format), ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides a specific temporal snapshot from March to August 1969 across a defined geographic region.

Limitations

• The mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument limits observations to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters, excluding deeper ocean layers.
• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and license information are unavailable from the provided sources.
• A conflict exists in the 'last_updated' field between platforms (2026-03-05 on Data.gov vs. 1969-08-28 on NASA Earthdata).

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments from multiple ships and processed to NODC standard C128 format.

Time Range

1969-03-02 to 1969-08-28

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:06:55.228536

Geography

Bay of Fundy and North Atlantic Ocean.