Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS STORMES (1954-1958)

Temperature-depth profiles from the USS STORMES, collected using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset covers multiple ocean regions from 1954 to 1958 and has been processed into the standardized NODC C128 format. Data provides a record of the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal and interannual temperature changes in the upper 285 meters of the ocean across multiple basins.
• Studying the spatial distribution of thermal structure in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Philippine Sea.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model reanalyses using point measurements of temperature at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.
• Investigating cruise-based oceanographic observations, utilizing reported cruise information, date, position, and time for each profile.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistency for analysis.
• Provides a multi-year time series from 1954-02-09 to 1958-06-02 across several ocean regions.
• Temperature values are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating vertical profile comparisons.

Limitations

• MBT instrument maximum depth is ~285 meters, limiting analysis to the ocean's upper thermal structure only.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and license information is unavailable from the provided sources.
• There is a conflict in 'last updated' metadata: datagov reports 2026-03-06, while nasa_earthdata reports the end date of the data itself, 1958-06-02.

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Centers for Environmental Information).

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments from the USS STORMES and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1954-02-09 to 1958-06-02

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:17:38.704306

Geography

Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea.