NOAA Ship Mt. Mitchell Bathythermograph Data from 1969 Caribbean Cruise

Bathythermograph data from NOAA Ship Mt. Mitchell records ocean temperature-depth profiles in the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean during a cruise from August 1 to August 6, 1969. The dataset has been processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format, containing pairs of temperature and depth values. It specifically captures the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers, with measurements taken at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature-depth profiles in the upper ocean (285m max) for the specified cruise.
• Studying the thermal structure and stratification of the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean in August 1969.
• Validating or calibrating ocean models with in-situ temperature observations from a standardized format (C128).
• Investigating short-term (6-day) oceanographic variability during a specific NOAA cruise.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistency for analysis.
• Provides precise temporal (1969-08-01 to 1969-08-06) and spatial (Caribbean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean) context for each observation.
• Temperature data is recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating profile comparisons.

Limitations

• The maximum observation depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, file size, and license are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between platforms (2026-04-01 on datagov vs. 1969-08-06 on nasa_earthdata).

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from NOAA Ship Mt. Mitchell.

Collection Method

Collected using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1969-08-01 to 1969-08-06

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:14:40.071106

Geography

Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean