USS Buchanan Historical Bathythermograph Data from 1963

July 1963 temperature-depth profiles from the USS Buchanan's mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) cruise in the North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South China Sea. The dataset contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum of approximately 285 meters. Data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using paired temperature-depth columns.
• Studying spatial oceanographic patterns across the North Pacific, Philippine Sea, and South China Sea using cruise position data.
• Investigating short-term (monthly) temperature variability in July 1963 using the date and time columns for each observation.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model reanalyses with in-situ temperature profile data.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a documented standard format (NODC C128), ensuring a consistent structure.
• Provides specific temporal coverage for a focused one-month research cruise from July 2 to July 31, 1963.
• Records precise measurement intervals (5 meters) and a known maximum observation depth (~285 m).

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts exist: the last updated date is reported as both 2026-03-05 (datagov) and 1963-07-31 (nasa_earthdata).
• Core quantitative details like row count, file size, and the complete column schema are unknown.
• Data is limited to the upper ocean (max ~285m) and is useful only for studying near-surface thermal structure.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from USS Buchanan cruise.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1963-07-02 to 1963-07-31

Freshness

2026-03-05

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South China Sea