Crawford Ship Historical Temperature-Depth Profiles 1953-1968

Fifteen years of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data from the R/V Crawford in the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, spanning from May 1953 to December 1968. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. Data was processed and standardized into the NODC C128 format by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Use Cases

• Analyzing thermal structure changes in the upper ocean (0-285m) over a 15-year period using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal or interannual temperature variability in specific regions using cruise location, date, and time metadata.
• Validating ocean model simulations of historical upper-ocean heat content against in-situ observations from the 1950s and 1960s.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent 15-year time series (1953-1968) for studying decadal ocean thermal changes.
• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring uniform 5-meter depth intervals for comparability.
• Includes precise cruise metadata (date, position, time) for each observation, enabling detailed spatiotemporal analysis.

Limitations

• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is ~285m, restricting analysis to the upper ocean layers only.
• Conflicting metadata: The 'last updated' date differs significantly between Data.gov (2026) and NASA Earthdata (1968), casting doubt on data currency.
• Key technical details are unknown, including total row count, specific column names, and file size.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), from R/V Crawford cruises.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC into standard C128 format.

Time Range

1953-05-30 to 1968-12-14

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:09:16.703804

Geography

Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean