USS D. H. Fox Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles

Approximately 285 meters is the maximum depth of observations in this dataset of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data collected by the USS D. H. FOX. It contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals across the Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, and Norwegian Sea from March 1950 to October 1960. The data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal and interannual variability of upper ocean thermal layers using temperature-depth pairs.
• Mapping historical sea surface temperature and subsurface thermal structure across the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• Studying the vertical temperature gradient in the upper 285 meters of the ocean for climate trend analysis.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with specific temperature-depth observations for event-based studies.

Strengths

• Data spans over a decade of observations from 1950-03-22 to 1960-10-13, providing a multi-year time series.
• Profiles are recorded at a consistent, high vertical resolution of uniform 5-meter depth intervals.
• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring a consistent structure.

Limitations

• Key quantitative details like total row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.
• The instrument's maximum depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the upper ocean layers only.
• Conflicting metadata exists: one platform lists a last updated date of 2026-03-05, while another lists 1960-10-13, creating uncertainty about provenance timing.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from USS D. H. FOX.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1950-03-22 to 1960-10-13

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:46:33.374058

Geography

Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, Norwegian Sea