North Pacific Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from CAYUSE

North Pacific Ocean temperature-depth profiles collected by the vessel CAYUSE using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset contains processed observations from March 1973 to March 1974, formatted to the NODC standard C128 specification. Data was processed and archived by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal thermal structure changes in the upper 285 meters of the North Pacific.
• Correlating temperature at uniform 5-meter depth intervals with cruise location and time data.
• Studying near-surface ocean heat content variability using paired temperature-depth value records.
• Validating historical ocean model outputs for the 1973-1974 period using instrument-calibrated profiles.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a standardized format (NODC C128), ensuring consistency for analysis.
• Provides a full year of continuous observations from March 1973 to March 1974.
• Each observation includes associated metadata: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• MBT instrument maximum depth is ~285 meters, limiting analysis to the upper ocean only.
• Critical metadata conflicts exist: row count, file size, and specific license are unknown across all platforms.
• The dataset's provenance and update status are unclear due to conflicting 'last updated' dates (1974 vs 2026).

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1973-03-22 to 1974-03-21

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:12:24.847825

Geography

North Pacific Ocean