Mediterranean Sea Upper-Layer Temperature Profiles from 1969

January to March 1969 temperature-depth profiles from the Mediterranean Sea, collected by the vessel LITTLE ROCK using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT). The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the C128 standard format, contains observations of the ocean's thermal structure down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It is hosted by NOAA NCEI and appears on multiple government data platforms.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal thermal structure changes in the Mediterranean Sea upper ocean for early 1969.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model simulations for the region using precise temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying the spatial and temporal distribution of ocean temperatures from a specific research cruise.
• Investigating instrument characteristics and data standardization methods for historical MBT observations.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistent structure for analysis.
• Provides precise temporal coverage for a specific cruise from January 4 to March 22, 1969.
• Temperature values are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating systematic profile comparison.

Limitations

• Key structural metadata is missing: exact row count, column names, and file size are unknown.
• The dataset is limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between sources (2026-04-01 on datagov vs. 1969-03-22 on nasa_earthdata).

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during a research cruise.

Time Range

1969-01-04 to 1969-03-22

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:14:31.625704

Geography

Mediterranean Sea, specific cruise track of the LITTLE ROCK vessel.