Salisbury Bathythermograph Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles 1960

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data from the vessel SALISBURY, collected across the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Red Sea during a cruise from October 29 to December 9, 1960. The dataset, processed by the NODC into the standard C128 format, contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. It provides a snapshot of the thermal structure of the upper ocean layers in these regions during this specific period.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature structure of the upper ocean (down to ~285m) using the paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying regional thermal variations by comparing profiles across the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Red Sea.
• Establishing historical baselines for upper ocean heat content in the specified regions during late 1960.
• Validating or supplementing ocean model reanalyses for the 1960 time period using precise cruise date, position, and time metadata.

Strengths

• Data is standardized in the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistency for historical comparison.
• Provides a focused temporal snapshot with precise cruise timing from 1960-10-29 to 1960-12-09.
• Covers multiple significant ocean basins: Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Red Sea.

Limitations

• Instrument depth limit of ~285m restricts analysis to the upper ocean layers only.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable from the provided sources.
• Data is from a single, short cruise, limiting temporal and spatial generalizability.

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument during a research cruise and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1960-10-29 to 1960-12-09

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:15:56.611778

Geography

Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea