Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from NOAA Ship Murre II

Temperature-depth profiles from mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) casts conducted by NOAA Ship MURRE II. The dataset covers coastal waters of Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, and the North Pacific Ocean from May 1963 to August 1965. Data were processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format, with temperature recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals up to approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying spatial and temporal variability of sea surface temperature and mixed layer depth in the North Pacific.
• Validating or providing historical context for regional ocean climate models.
• Mapping cruise tracks and sampling locations using reported position, date, and time for each observation.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent, NODC-standardized (C128 format) structure for historical data.
• Covers a multi-year time range (over 2 years) from 1963-05 30 to 1965-08-10.
• Offers detailed metadata per observation, including cruise information, position, date, and time.

Limitations

• Data is limited to the upper ocean (max depth ~285m), restricting analysis of deeper thermal features.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata: datagov reports 2026-04-01, while nasa_earthdata reports the original collection end date of 1965-08-10.
• Specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument casts processed by NODC to the C128 format.

Time Range

1963-05-30 to 1965-08-10

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:15:04.364256

Geography

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