Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from MARY LOU Cruise

285 meters is the maximum depth of observations for this dataset of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) readings. It captures a single temperature-depth profile from the research vessel MARY LOU in the North Pacific Ocean on September 16, 1956. The data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into its standard C128 format for archived bathythermograph records.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the upper ocean at a specific location and time.
• Studying historical oceanographic measurement techniques and data standardization (NODC C128 format).
• Providing a single-point reference for the thermal state of the North Pacific Ocean in September 1956.
• Examining data from the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument, which records at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.

Strengths

• Data adheres to a documented archival standard (NODC C128 format) ensuring consistent structure.
• Includes essential cruise metadata such as date, position, and time for contextualizing the observation.
• The measurement methodology is clearly described, with temperature recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals up to approximately 285m.

Limitations

• The dataset contains only one observation from a single day, offering extremely limited temporal coverage.
• Key technical details like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from the provided sources.
• The maximum depth of ~285m restricts analysis to the upper ocean layers only.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed to a standard format.

Time Range

1956-09-16 to 1956-09-16

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:47:39.389089

Geography

North Pacific Ocean (specific position reported within cruise metadata)