Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from the J. W. Gibbs Expedition

This dataset contains temperature-depth profiles collected using a mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) during a 1959 cruise of the J. W. GIBBS in the North Atlantic Ocean. The data, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the C128 standard format, consists of paired temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals up to approximately 285 meters. It provides a snapshot of the thermal structure of the upper ocean layers over a specific five-day period.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the North Atlantic Ocean's upper 285 meters.
• Studying short-term thermal variability during a specific cruise in December 1959.
• Using cruise information, date, position, and time metadata to contextualize historical oceanographic observations.
• Benchmarking historical ocean temperature data against modern measurements for climate change studies.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard (NODC C128 format).
• Temperature-depth pairs are recorded at a consistent, high-resolution interval of 5 meters.
• Provides precise temporal (1959-12-13 to 1959-12-17) and spatial (North Atlantic Ocean) context for each observation.

Limitations

• Key technical details like row count, column names, and file size are unknown across all sources.
• The MBT instrument's maximum depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during a research cruise and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1959-12-13 to 1959-12-17

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:12:52.493256

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean (specific cruise track of the J. W. GIBBS).