Mediterranean Sea Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from 1969

October 19 to November 1, 1969 temperature-depth profiles collected by the vessel COLUMBUS using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) in the Mediterranean Sea. The dataset contains pairs of temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. It is published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature structure of the upper 285 meters of the Mediterranean Sea.
• Studying short-term thermal variability during a specific cruise in late October 1969.
• Calibrating or validating models of upper ocean heat content for a historical period.
• Investigating the relationship between cruise-reported position, time, and observed temperature profiles.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Provides precise temporal coverage for a 13-day period in 1969.
• Includes core metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.
• Temperature values are recorded at a consistent, high-resolution 5-meter depth interval.

Limitations

• The dataset is limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Key quantitative details like total row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from the sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one reports 2026-03-05, while another reports the original data date of 1969-11-01.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce.

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the vessel COLUMBUS and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1969-10-19 to 1969-11-01

Freshness

2026-03 05 22:52:45.493112

Geography

Mediterranean Sea.