North Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from 1965 PERSEUS Cruise

June 5 to July 5, 1965, temperature-depth profiles collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) during the PERSEUS cruise in the North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea. Data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format, recording temperature at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. The dataset is provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m) using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying spatial and temporal ocean temperature variability in the North Pacific during June-July 1965.
• Validating or calibrating ocean model simulations for historical surface layer conditions.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with observed temperature profiles.

Strengths

• Provides a focused one-month temporal snapshot (June-July 1965) for consistent seasonal analysis.
• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structured temperature-depth pairs at uniform 5m intervals.
• Includes core metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Key technical details are unknown, including total row count, specific column names, and exact file size.
• Instrument limitation restricts observations to a maximum depth of ~285m, capturing only the upper ocean thermal structure.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata exists between platforms (2026-03-05 on Data.gov vs. 1965-07 05 on NASA Earthdata).

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Temperature-depth profiles obtained using the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1965-06-05 to 1965-07-05

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:37:40.759582

Geography

North Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea