Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from the USS Millicoma

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea temperature-depth profiles collected by the USS Millicoma using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) between December 1944 and January 1945. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into standard C128 format, consists of paired temperature and depth measurements recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It provides a snapshot of the upper ocean's thermal structure from a specific World War II-era naval operation.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean layer (up to ~285m) for a specific time and region.
• Studying historical ocean conditions during World War II naval operations in the North Pacific and Philippine Sea.
• Reprocessing or validating temperature-depth profile data stored in the legacy NODC C128 format.
• Investigating sea surface temperature variability and mixed layer depth from a discrete time period.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard format (NODC C128) ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides precise temporal coverage for a 34-day cruise from 1944-12-23 to 1945-01 25.
• Includes core metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating analysis.

Limitations

• Conflicting 'last updated' dates: Data.gov lists 2026-03-05 (likely a metadata update), while NASA Earthdata lists the collection end date of 1945-01-25.
• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is ~285m, restricting analysis to the upper ocean only.
• Critical metadata unknown: total row count, file size, specific column names, and license are not provided by any source.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the USS Millicoma and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1944-12-23 to 1945-01-25

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:59:14.040142

Geography

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea