Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from HMS Ulysses Voyage

Temperature-depth profiles from the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument deployed during the HMS Ulysses cruise across the North Pacific, South Pacific, and Tasman Sea. The data, processed by the NODC into the C128 standard format, consists of paired temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. This dataset captures the thermal structure of the upper ocean layers during a specific voyage from March 28 to May 19, 1958.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying spatial temperature gradients across the North Pacific, South Pacific, and Tasman Sea regions.
• Investigating temporal changes in near-surface ocean heat content during the 1958 cruise period.
• Using cruise information, date, position, and time metadata to correlate ocean conditions with specific locations and times.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring a consistent structure for analysis.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, providing systematic vertical resolution.
• The dataset provides specific temporal coverage for a historical cruise from 1958-03-28 to 1958-05-19.
• Its presence on multiple government platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata) indicates recognized archival value.

Limitations

• The maximum observation depth is ~285m, limiting analysis to the upper ocean layers only.
• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, file size, and license are unavailable across all sources.
• There is a conflict in 'last updated' metadata between platforms (2026-03-06 vs. 1958-05-19).

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Time Range

1958-03-28 to 1958-05-19

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:06:33.163132

Geography

North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, Tasman Sea