Historical North Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from O'BRIEN Cruise

Bathythermograph (MBT) data from the O'BRIEN cruise in the North Pacific Ocean, collected from August 5 to 13, 1962. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. This data captures the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the upper ocean using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying short-term thermal variability in a specific North Pacific region during August 1962.
• Validating or calibrating ocean model simulations for historical surface layer conditions.
• Investigating cruise-based observational methods and data formats from the 1960s.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a documented standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides precise temporal and spatial context with cruise information, date, position, and time for each observation.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at a uniform 5-meter depth interval, facilitating systematic analysis.

Limitations

• Instrument limitation restricts data to the upper ~285 meters of the ocean, missing deeper thermal structure.
• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and license are unavailable across all sources.
• Data is from a single, brief cruise in 1962, limiting spatial and temporal representativeness.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1962-08-05 to 1962-08-13

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:29:08.518271

Geography

North Pacific Ocean