Historical Bathythermograph Profiles from St. Austell Bay

Mechanical bathythermograph data captures temperature-depth profiles from the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean near St. Austell Bay. The dataset covers a one-month period in early 1956, processed to the NODC standard C128 format. It was collected and published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal stratification of the upper ocean up to 285 meters depth.
• Studying seasonal or historical temperature changes in the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic.
• Validating ocean model simulations for the 1950s using in-situ profile data.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with specific temperature-depth pairs.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistent structure.
• Temperature values are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating analysis.
• Provides precise temporal coverage from February 28 to March 27, 1956.

Limitations

• Key metadata like row count, column names, and exact file size are unknown across all platforms.
• The maximum observation depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between platforms (2026 vs. 1956), creating provenance uncertainty.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected using mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instruments and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1956-02-28 to 1956-03-27

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:18:38.193762

Geography

St. Austell Bay in the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean