Historical North Atlantic Temperature Profiles from USNS Blue Jacket

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data records temperature-depth pairs at 5-meter intervals in the upper ocean layers, with a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. The dataset was collected by the USNS BLUE JACKET during a single cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean and processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into its standard C128 format. It captures a snapshot of the ocean's thermal structure over a one-month period in 1963.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature gradient in the upper 285 meters of the ocean using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying short-term thermal variability in a specific region of the North Atlantic during April-May 1963.
• Correlating cruise information, date, position, and time with observed temperature profiles for spatiotemporal analysis.
• Benchmarking historical upper-ocean thermal conditions against modern datasets.

Strengths

• Data is structured to the NODC's standardized C128 format, ensuring consistent processing.
• Temperature observations are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating systematic analysis.
• Each profile is associated with precise cruise information, date, position, and time metadata.

Limitations

• Key quantitative details like total row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.
• The dataset is limited to the upper ocean (max ~285m depth), excluding deeper thermal structure.
• The temporal coverage is very narrow, spanning only about one month in 1963.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), from NODC processing.

Collection Method

Collected via Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the USNS BLUE JACKET.

Time Range

1963-04-06 to 1963-05-01

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:22:19.074689

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean