Historical North Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from NOAA Ship Townsend Cromwell

NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center provides bathythermograph data from the NOAA Ship Townsend Cromwell, covering the North Pacific Ocean from January 1968 to January 1969. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. Data is formatted to the NODC standard C128 format for mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) observations.

Use Cases

• Analyzing thermal stratification in the North Pacific upper ocean using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal or annual temperature variations from 1968 to 1969 with cruise date and time metadata.
• Mapping regional oceanographic conditions using position data (latitude/longitude) associated with each profile.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model simulations for the upper 285 meters with historical in-situ measurements.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a standardized format (NODC C128), ensuring consistency.
• Provides a continuous time series of over one year, from 1968-01-10 to 1969-01-21.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at a consistent, high-resolution 5-meter depth interval.

Limitations

• Core metadata such as row count, column names, file size, and license are unavailable from all sources.
• Instrument limitation restricts data to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.
• A conflict exists for the 'last updated' date between platforms (2026-03-05 on Data.gov vs. 1969-01 21 on NASA Earthdata).

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1968-01 10 to 1969-01-21

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:41:43.542252

Geography

North Pacific Ocean