Quiberon MBT Ocean Temperature Profiles from Indian Ocean and South China Sea

Indian Ocean and South China Sea temperature-depth profiles collected by the vessel QUIBERON using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset covers a period from August 1958 to January 1964 and has been processed into the NODC standard C128 format by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). Each observation includes cruise information, date, position, and time, with temperature recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals up to a maximum of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical sea surface temperature trends using the recorded temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying the thermal structure of the upper ocean (down to ~285m) for climate model validation.
• Mapping cruise tracks and sampling locations over time using the reported position data.
• Investigating seasonal or interannual variability in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea from 1958-1964.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring a consistent structure for analysis.
• Provides a multi-year time series from 1958 to 1964 for studying temporal changes.
• Includes precise metadata per observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts: 'last updated' date differs significantly between datagov (2026-04-01) and nasa_earthdata (1964-01-11).
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are unknown from all sources.
• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is ~285m, restricting analysis to the upper ocean only.

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Centers for Environmental Information).

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments from the vessel QUIBERON and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1958-08-15 to 1964-01-11

Freshness

2026-04-01 14:58:44.667629

Geography

Indian Ocean and South China Sea.