North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from 1965

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data collected from the vessel OUTPOST in the North Atlantic Ocean during March 1965. The dataset provides standardized temperature-depth profile pairs for the upper ocean layers, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the C128 format. This data is part of NCEI Accession 6500862 and is hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to 285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal or historical ocean temperature trends in the North Atlantic for a specific month.
• Validating ocean model outputs for March 1965 using in-situ profile data.
• Correlating cruise-specific metadata (date, position, time) with observed temperature profiles.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Temperature readings are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating analysis.
• Each observation includes associated cruise metadata (date, position, time) for contextual analysis.

Limitations

• Key technical details are missing, including row count, file size, and specific column names.
• The instrument's maximum depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Platforms disagree on the last updated date (2026-03-05 vs. 1965-03-30), creating uncertainty about metadata freshness.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected using a mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the vessel OUTPOST and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1965-03-01 to 1965-03-30

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:57:32.116799

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean