Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from the CHICAGO Cruise

Bathythermograph (MBT) data from the CHICAGO cruise in the North Pacific Ocean, collected from October 6 to October 29, 1964. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. It documents the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature structure of the upper ocean during a specific cruise period.
• Studying historical ocean thermal conditions in the North Pacific region.
• Validating or calibrating oceanographic models using in-situ temperature-depth profile data.
• Investigating short-term oceanographic variability during October 1964.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a documented NODC standard format (C128), ensuring a consistent structure.
• Provides a focused temporal snapshot with a precise 24-day collection period from a single research vessel.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at uniform depth intervals (5 m), facilitating straightforward analysis.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable from all sources.
• The MBT instrument's maximum depth of ~285 m limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• The dataset's age (1964) may limit its direct applicability to contemporary studies without complementary modern data.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from the CHICAGO cruise.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1964-10-06 to 1964-10-29

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:08:54.088247

Geography

North Pacific Ocean