Historical North Pacific Ocean Temperature-Depth Profiles

Bathythermograph (MBT) data from the U. M. MOORE vessel captures temperature-depth profiles in the North Pacific Ocean between May 1952 and May 1955. The data has been processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. Each observation includes cruise information, date, position, time, and paired temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m depth) using temperature-depth value pairs.
• Studying historical oceanographic conditions in the North Pacific using cruise, date, position, and time metadata.
• Calibrating or validating ocean models with standardized historical temperature profile data in the C128 format.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring consistency for analysis.
• Provides a multi-year time series from 1952 to 1955 for studying temporal changes.
• Includes precise geospatial and temporal metadata (cruise, date, position, time) for each observation.

Limitations

• Key metrics like row count, column names, and dataset size are unknown across all sources.
• The Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument limits observations to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' field: one source reports 2026-03-05 (likely a metadata refresh), while another reports the final data collection date of 1955-05-22.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from the U. M. MOORE vessel.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1952-05-04 to 1955-05-22

Freshness

2026-03-05

Geography

North Pacific Ocean