NOAA Ship George B. Kelez Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles 1962-1966

NOAA Ship George B. Kelez collected mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and North Pacific Ocean. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to approximately 285 meters, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format. Observations span from August 1962 to September 1966.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical upper ocean thermal stratification using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying seasonal or interannual temperature variability in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska from 1962-1966.
• Validating regional ocean model outputs for the upper 285 meters using in-situ profile data.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with specific temperature-depth observations.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a consistent standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structured comparability.
• Provides a multi-year time series from 1962 to 1966 across a defined geographical region.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating systematic analysis.

Limitations

• Maximum observation depth is limited to ~285 meters, restricting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and exact file size are unavailable from the provided sources.
• A conflict exists in 'last updated' metadata: Data.gov reports 2026-03 05, while NASA Earthdata reports the original collection end date of 1966-09-20.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Time Range

1962-08-16 to 1966-09-20

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:58:28.237620

Geography

Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, North Pacific Ocean