FURMAN Ship Temperature-Depth Profiles from 1966

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea temperature-depth profiles were collected by the ship FURMAN using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset covers a one-month period from March 25 to April 22, 1966, and has been processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into its standard C128 format. It provides paired temperature and depth measurements at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean layer using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying spatial and temporal variability of sea surface temperature in the North Pacific and Philippine Sea using cruise position and date columns.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model outputs for the 1960s period with instrument-measured profile data.
• Investigating cruise-specific oceanographic conditions during the FURMAN expedition in spring 1966.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to a known NODC format (C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Provides high vertical resolution with temperature recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.
• Covers a specific, documented one-month cruise period from March 25 to April 22, 1966.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and file size are unavailable from all sources.
• The maximum observation depth of ~285 meters limits utility to studies of the ocean's upper layers only.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' date, with one platform listing 2026 and another listing 1966.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments from the ship FURMAN and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1966-03-25 to 1966-04-22

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:17:20.362760

Geography

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea