South Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from Mechanical Bathythermograph

Bathythermograph (MBT) data from UNANUE in the South Pacific Ocean provides temperature-depth profile pairs for the upper ocean layers. The dataset covers a specific cruise from May 20 to June 7, 1971, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into its standard C128 format. It is published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is available on multiple government data platforms.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying historical ocean temperature conditions in the South Pacific for a specific cruise period.
• Validating or calibrating ocean models with in-situ temperature profile data recorded at 5-meter intervals.
• Investigating short-term temperature variability in the upper ocean during late May and early June 1971.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring a consistent structure.
• Each observation includes associated metadata such as cruise information, date, position, and time.
• Temperature data is recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating systematic analysis.
• The dataset's presence on multiple official platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata) indicates curation and archival importance.

Limitations

• The dataset is limited to the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Specific details on row count, file size, column names, and license are unavailable across all sources.
• The temporal coverage is very narrow, representing only a single 19-day cruise in 1971.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1971-05-20 to 1971-06-07

Freshness

2026-03-06 00:25:14.395287

Geography

South Pacific Ocean