Historical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from BUNTING

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data captures temperature-depth profiles from the research vessel BUNTING during a two-day cruise in August 1958. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format, provides paired temperature and depth measurements at uniform 5-meter intervals. It offers a snapshot of the thermal structure in the upper ocean layers of the North Atlantic.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal gradient in the North Atlantic using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying historical sea surface temperature conditions from the recorded temperature data at shallow depths.
• Investigating short-term oceanographic conditions during a specific cruise using the reported date, position, and time.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model outputs for the upper 285 meters of the ocean using instrument-specific MBT data.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a documented standard format (NODC C128), ensuring consistency.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at a uniform, high-resolution 5-meter depth interval.
• Cruise metadata including date, position, and time is reported for each observation, providing context.

Limitations

• The MBT instrument's maximum depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and license information are unavailable across all sources.
• The dataset's temporal coverage is extremely brief, spanning only two days in August 1958.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the vessel BUNTING.

Time Range

1958-08-21 to 1958-08-22

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:05:12.125393

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean