Historical North Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from RONQUIL

North Pacific Ocean temperature-depth profiles collected by the RONQUIL vessel using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) on January 10-11, 1950. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into standard C128 format, contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals. It is published 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 short-term oceanographic variability over a two-day cruise period using date, time, and position data.
• Historical reanalysis of North Pacific surface and subsurface temperature conditions.
• Calibrating or validating models of upper ocean heat content for specific historical periods.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structured temperature-depth pairs.
• Provides precise temporal (1950-01-10 to 1950-01-11) and spatial (North Pacific Ocean) context for each profile.
• Temperature values are recorded at consistent 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating uniform analysis.

Limitations

• MBT instrument limits observations to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters, restricting analysis to the upper ocean.
• Cross-platform metadata conflicts: 'last_updated' dates differ significantly between Data.gov (2026) and NASA Earthdata (1950).
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, specific column names, and license information are unavailable from all sources.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during a research cruise, processed by NODC.

Time Range

1950-01-10 to 1950-01-11

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:26:43.032606

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, specific cruise track of RONQUIL vessel.