Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from Norwegian Sea 1957

Mechanical bathythermograph data from the research vessel POLARFRONT II, capturing temperature-depth profiles in the Norwegian Sea. The dataset covers a single cruise from June to December 1957, processed into the NODC standard C128 format. It was collected and standardized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal changes in sea surface temperature and thermocline depth during 1957.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model reanalyses for the Norwegian Sea region.
• Studying the spatial distribution of upper ocean heat content from cruise track position data.
• Investigating instrument characteristics and data standards of historical mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) records.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides a continuous time series of observations from a specific vessel over a 7-month period.
• Temperature values are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating profile analysis.

Limitations

• Maximum observation depth is only ~285 meters, limiting analysis to the upper ocean layer.
• Critical metadata like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.
• There is a conflict in 'last updated' metadata between platforms (2026 vs 1957), creating provenance uncertainty.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed by NODC to its C128 format.

Time Range

1957-06-03 to 1957-12-28

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:03:07.981138

Geography

Norwegian Sea (from POLARFRONT II cruise track)