Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from EVANS Cruise in 1962

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea temperature-depth profiles collected by the ship EVANS using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT). The dataset covers a one-week cruise from December 11 to 18, 1962, and was processed into the NODC standard C128 format by the National Oceanographic Data Center. It contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the upper 285m of the ocean for a specific time and location.
• Studying short-term thermal variability during a December 1962 cruise in the North Pacific and Philippine Sea.
• Correlating cruise-reported metadata (date, position, time) with observed temperature-depth profile pairs.
• Benchmarking historical upper-ocean thermal conditions against modern observations.

Strengths

• Data is formatted to a recognized standard (NODC C128 format), ensuring structural consistency.
• Temperature observations are recorded at a uniform 5-meter depth interval, facilitating direct comparisons.
• Each profile is associated with specific cruise metadata including date, position, and time.

Limitations

• The MBT instrument limits observations to a maximum depth of ~285m, restricting analysis to the upper ocean only.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from the provided sources.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' date: one platform reports 2026-03-05, while another reports the original collection date of 1962-12-18.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during the EVANS cruise and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1962-12-11 to 1962-12-18

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:22:53.470550

Geography

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea