North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from Mechanical Bathythermograph

Temperature-depth profile data collected using a mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during a cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) to its standard C128 format, contains observations from March 26 to March 28, 1964. It is structured as pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper North Atlantic Ocean using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying short-term ocean temperature variability over a three-day cruise period using time-stamped observations.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model outputs with precisely located profile data.
• Investigating the limitations of mechanical bathythermograph technology for upper-ocean research.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a documented standard format (NODC C128), ensuring consistency.
• Provides precise geospatial and temporal context with reported cruise information, date, position, and time for each observation.
• Offers uniform vertical resolution with temperature recorded at consistent 5-meter depth intervals.

Limitations

• Platforms disagree on the last updated date, with one source listing 2026-03-05 and another listing the original collection date of 1964-03-28.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, file size, and license are unknown across all sources.
• Instrument limitation restricts observations to a maximum depth of ~285 m, capturing only the upper ocean layers.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1964-03-26 to 1964-03-28

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:31:56.731174

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean