Historical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from R/V Gerda

Mechanical bathythermograph data captures temperature-depth profiles from a 1959 research cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean. The dataset contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum of approximately 285 meters. It was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean using paired temperature-depth columns.
• Studying historical ocean conditions during a specific August 1959 cruise using date, position, and time columns.
• Comparing near-surface ocean temperature profiles from mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrumentation.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128) ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides a focused temporal snapshot from a single research cruise (1959-08-07 to 1959-08-12).
• Measurements are recorded at a uniform 5-meter depth interval, facilitating direct profile comparison.

Limitations

• Key metadata like row count, column names, and file size are unknown across all platforms.
• Instrument maximum depth is approximately 285m, limiting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), from R/V GERDA cruise.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1959-08-07 to 1959-08-12

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:53:28.377647

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean