Columbia River Bathythermograph Temperature-Depth Profiles 1956-1958

North Pacific Ocean temperature-depth profiles collected from the Columbia River using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset contains observations from February 15, 1956, to February 17, 1958, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. Data is structured as pairs of temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, useful for studying the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical sea surface temperature and subsurface thermal structure using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal or interannual variability in the upper ocean's heat content near the Columbia River outflow.
• Validating or supplementing regional oceanographic models with in-situ temperature profile data from the 1950s.
• Investigating coastal oceanographic processes by correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with temperature observations.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a standardized format (NODC C128), ensuring consistency across records.
• Observations cover a defined two-year period from 1956-02-15 to 1958-02-17, providing a temporal snapshot.
• Each record includes associated metadata such as cruise information, date, position, and time for contextual analysis.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov indicates the dataset's recognized importance and curation.

Limitations

• Key technical specifications are unknown, including row count, file size, and complete column names.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' metadata, with Data.gov reporting 2026 and NASA Earthdata reporting 1958.
• The MBT instrument's maximum depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments and processed to the NODC C128 standard format.

Time Range

1956-02-15 to 1958-02-17

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:15:48.249814

Geography

Columbia River in the North Pacific Ocean.