Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS AMMEN

From August 1952 to September 1959, this dataset contains mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) measurements collected by the USS AMMEN across multiple seas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It provides temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. The data has been processed and standardized into the NODC C128 format by the National Oceanographic Data Center.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical sea surface temperature trends using the recorded temperature values.
• Studying the thermal structure of the upper ocean (down to 285m) via the paired temperature-depth profiles.
• Mapping regional oceanographic conditions using the cruise, date, position, and time metadata for each observation.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model hindcasts for the 1950s in the specified sea regions.

Strengths

• Provides a multi-year temporal record spanning over seven years (1952-1959).
• Covers a wide geographical area across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including the Andaman Sea, East China Sea, and Red Sea.
• Data is standardized to a known archival format (NODC C128), ensuring consistent structure.

Limitations

• The dataset's exact row count and file size are unknown.
• Conflicting metadata exists: one source lists an update date of 2026-03-05, while another uses the end date of the data (1959-09-05) as 'last updated'.
• Instrument limitations restrict observations to the upper 285 meters of the ocean.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument aboard the USS AMMEN and processed to NODC standard format.

Time Range

1952-08-30 to 1959-09-05

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:41:01.462740

Geography

Andaman Sea or Burma Sea, Bay of Bengal, East China Sea, Japan Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, Red Sea, South China Sea.