Dolphin Cruise Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from 1970

Mechanical bathythermograph data from the NOAA ship DOLPHIN, capturing temperature-depth profiles in the North Atlantic Ocean. The dataset comprises pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It has been processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the upper 285 meters of the ocean for a specific cruise.
• Studying short-term thermal variability in the North Atlantic during July 1970 using date, position, and time metadata.
• Calibrating or validating models of upper ocean heat content using discrete temperature-depth pairs.
• Investigating the performance and data characteristics of the Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard (NODC C128 format).
• Temperature readings are recorded at a consistent, uniform depth interval of 5 meters.
• Each observation includes associated metadata: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Key quantitative details like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.
• The data is limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Temporal coverage is extremely brief, spanning only five days in July 1970.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), collected from the NOAA ship DOLPHIN.

Collection Method

Measurements taken using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1970-07-06 to 1970-07-10

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:46:48.754854

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean