Historical MBT Temperature-Depth Profiles from East and South China Seas

Temperature-depth profile data was collected from the RV O'BRIEN in the East China Sea and South China Sea over a 24-day period in early 1967. The dataset comprises pairs of temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It has been processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format for mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) observations.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean by examining temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying historical ocean conditions in the East and South China Seas using cruise information, date, position, and time.
• Calibrating or validating ocean models with in-situ temperature profile data from a specific time period.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Provides precise temporal (1967-02-08 to 1967-03-03) and geographic (East & South China Seas) context for each observation.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov indicates recognized importance and curation.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and file size are unknown across all sources.
• The MBT instrument's maximum depth of ~285m limits analysis to the upper ocean layers only.
• A conflict exists in the 'last updated' field: Data.gov lists 2026-04-01, while NASA Earthdata lists the original collection end date of 1967-03-03.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from the RV O'BRIEN cruise.

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1967-02-08 to 1967-03-03

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:05:04.905971

Geography

East China Sea and South China Sea