Historical North Atlantic Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from USNS Blue Jacket

Temperature-depth profiles from the North Atlantic Ocean, collected by the USNS Blue Jacket using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) in early 1967. The dataset contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. Data was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying historical ocean conditions by cross-referencing cruise date, position, and time for each profile.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model simulations for the North Atlantic region in February-March 1967.

Strengths

• Data is formatted to a documented NODC standard (C128), ensuring consistent structure.
• Profiles provide consistent vertical resolution with temperature recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.
• The dataset's cross-platform presence (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata) signals its recognized importance for historical oceanography.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, license, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• The MBT instrument limits observations to the upper ~285 meters of the ocean, excluding deeper water properties.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), collected from USNS Blue Jacket.

Collection Method

In-situ measurements gathered using a Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument.

Time Range

1967-02-11 to 1967-03-09

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:45:38.756454

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean