Indian Ocean Temperature Profiles from TARANAKI Cruises 1965-1967

Temperature-depth profiles from the Indian Ocean collected by the vessel TARANAKI using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments. The dataset contains processed observations from the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) in the C128 standard format, covering a period from August 1965 to November 1967. It is published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature gradients in the upper 285 meters of the Indian Ocean using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying seasonal or interannual thermal variability from 1965 to 1967 using cruise date and position data.
• Calibrating or validating ocean mixed-layer models with uniformly sampled temperature data at 5-meter depth intervals.
• Investigating cruise-based oceanographic survey methodologies and data standards from the mid-1960s.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a consistent standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural uniformity.
• Provides a multi-year time series from 1965-08 16 to 1967-11-25 for temporal analysis.
• Includes core metadata for each observation: cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is ~285m, restricting analysis to the ocean's upper thermal structure only.
• Key technical details are unknown: total row count, specific column names, and exact file size.
• Conflict in 'last updated' metadata: Data.gov lists 2026-03-05, while NASA Earthdata lists the collection end date of 1967-11-25.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed by NODC to C128 format.

Time Range

1965-08-16 to 1967-11-25

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:55:53.671890

Geography

Indian Ocean (specific cruise locations from TARANAKI vessel)