Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from the 1962 PONCHATOULA Expedition

Mechanical bathythermograph data from the R/V PONCHATOULA's 1962 cruise in the North and South Pacific Oceans. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. Data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the NODC standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean from temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying short-term oceanographic conditions during a specific 9-day cruise in April 1962.
• Correlating surface and subsurface temperature data with recorded cruise position and time.
• Providing a historical baseline for comparison with modern upper-ocean temperature profiles.

Strengths

• Data is formatted to a recognized NODC standard (C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Temperature observations are recorded at a uniform 5-meter depth interval, facilitating analysis.
• Each profile includes associated metadata: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• The dataset is limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of ~285 meters.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, license, and author are unavailable across all sources.
• The temporal coverage is very brief, spanning only 9 days in April 1962.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1962-04-10 to 1962-04-18

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:41:05.912757

Geography

North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean