Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from the HANNA Cruises

This dataset contains temperature-depth profiles from mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) casts taken by the vessel HANNA in the North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South China Sea. It includes observations from 1952 to 1957, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. The data captures the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical upper ocean thermal stratification using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying decadal-scale changes in sea surface temperature and mixed-layer depth in the North Pacific.
• Validating and calibrating ocean model hindcasts for the 1950s period using precise cruise, date, position, and time metadata.
• Investigating regional oceanographic patterns in the Philippine Sea and South China Sea during the post-war era.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard format (NODC C128).
• Provides consistent, uniform depth intervals of 5 meters for temperature measurements.
• Covers a multi-year time range (1952-1957) across several ocean basins.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData indicates recognized archival importance.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts: the 'last updated' date differs significantly between sources (2026-04-01 on Data.gov vs. 1957-07-28 on NASA EarthData).
• Specific data volume (row count, file size) and column names are unknown.
• Instrument limitation: MBT data is only useful for studying the upper ocean, with a maximum depth of ~285m.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from NODC.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during research cruises.

Time Range

1952-10-01 to 1957-07-28

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:31:53.091177

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South China Sea