Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from Cardigan Bay Cruises

Temperature-depth profiles from the upper ocean layers collected by the research vessel Cardigan Bay using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset covers a three-year period from 1957 to 1960 across the Coral Sea, South China Sea, and South Pacific Ocean. Data was processed and standardized by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m) using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying spatial variability of sea surface and subsurface temperatures across the Coral Sea, South China Sea, and South Pacific.
• Investigating seasonal or interannual temperature changes from 1957 to 1960 using cruise date and time stamps.
• Validating or calibrating ocean model simulations for the mid-20th century using precise location data (latitude/longitude).

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistent structure for temperature-depth pairs.
• Provides uniform 5-meter depth interval measurements, facilitating systematic analysis of the water column.
• Covers a multi-year time range (1957-1960) across three distinct oceanographic regions.
• Includes precise metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is approximately 285 meters, restricting analysis to the upper ocean only.
• Conflicting metadata: The 'last updated' date differs significantly between platforms (1960-12-29 vs. 2026 03-06).
• Key quantitative details like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments during research cruises and processed to NODC standard C128 format.

Time Range

1957-10-29 to 1960-12 29

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:11:33.029972

Geography

Coral Sea, South China Sea, and South Pacific Ocean (from Cardigan Bay vessel cruises).