Historical Bathythermograph Data from Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

Over two decades of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data document ocean thermal structure from 1947 to 1968. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It was collected by BOCO and NOAA Ship OREGON in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Atlantic Oceans and processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean layers using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying historical ocean temperature variability across the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Atlantic basins.
• Validating or calibrating ocean climate models with mid-20th century in-situ profile data.
• Investigating cruise-specific oceanographic conditions using reported cruise information, date, position, and time.

Strengths

• Covers a significant 21-year time range from 1947-12-31 to 1968-03-20.
• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistent structure.
• Provides high vertical resolution with temperature recorded at uniform 5 m depth intervals.

Limitations

• Row count, total size, and specific column names are unknown across all sources.
• Observations are limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one platform reports 2026-03-06, while another reports the data's end date of 1968-03-20.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from BOCO and NOAA Ship OREGON.

Collection Method

Collected using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments and processed by NODC to the C128 standard format.

Time Range

1947-12-31 to 1968-03-20

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:16:26.929073

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean