Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from the USS Saugatuck

Temperature-depth profiles collected by the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) aboard the USS Saugatuck during a 1944-1945 cruise. The dataset contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. It covers operations in the North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South China Sea, and South Pacific Ocean.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to 285m) in the Pacific region during WWII.
• Studying historical sea surface temperature trends and variability using the recorded temperature-depth pairs.
• Validating or calibrating ocean climate models with precise cruise date, position, and time metadata.
• Researching seasonal oceanographic changes in the Western Pacific from late 1944 to early 1945.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a standardized NODC format (C128), ensuring consistency.
• Provides precise temporal coverage from September 1944 to January 1945.
• Covers a wide geographical area across multiple Pacific seas and oceans.

Limitations

• Maximum observation depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the upper ocean layers.
• Conflicting metadata: one platform lists a last updated date of 2026-03-06, while another shows the data date of 1945-01-26.
• Key details like row count, file size, specific column names, and license information are unknown.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from the USS Saugatuck cruise.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1944-09-12 to 1945-01-26

Freshness

Most recent metadata update recorded on 2026-03-06 (datagov).

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South China Sea, South Pacific Ocean