Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from HARMONY Cruise

HARMONY cruise data from 1966 provides temperature-depth profiles at uniform 5-meter intervals down to approximately 285 meters. The dataset covers the coastal waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, the Gulf of Alaska, and the North Pacific Ocean. Data 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 values.
• Studying seasonal oceanographic changes in the North Pacific during summer 1966 with date and time stamps.
• Mapping regional temperature variations using reported position (latitude/longitude) data.
• Investigating cruise-based observational patterns from the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128) ensuring consistency.
• Profiles provide uniform vertical resolution with measurements at 5-meter depth intervals.
• Covers a specific four-month observational period from May to September 1966.
• Includes essential metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Maximum depth is limited to ~285m, restricting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and license are unavailable from provided sources.
• A conflict exists on the 'last updated' date: one source states 2026-04-01, another states the original data date of 1966-09-25.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed by NODC.

Time Range

1966-05 26 to 1966-09-25

Freshness

2026-04-01 14:56:57.803465

Geography

Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Gulf of Alaska, North Pacific Ocean