Historical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from the SEARCHER Cruise

June 7-26, 1962 data comprises temperature-depth profiles from the SEARCHER cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). The dataset contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters. It is published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying short-term oceanographic variability in the North Atlantic during June 1962 using cruise, date, position, and time metadata.
• Calibrating or validating models of historical mixed-layer dynamics with standardized NODC C128 format data.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a standardized NODC format (C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Temporal and spatial coverage is precisely defined: June 7-26, 1962 in the North Atlantic Ocean.
• Temperature readings are provided at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating analysis.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable.
• Data is limited to the upper ocean (max ~285m depth), excluding deeper thermal structure.
• There is a conflict in 'last updated' metadata: datagov reports 2026-03 05, while nasa_earthdata reports the original collection date of 1962-06-26.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the SEARCHER cruise and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1962-06-07 to 1962-06-26

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:57:12.944306

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean