North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Profiles from USNS Maurice Rose, 1961

Temperature-depth profiles from the upper ocean were collected by the USNS Maurice Rose using a mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) in the North Atlantic Ocean. The dataset covers a specific cruise from November 4 to December 24, 1961, and was processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into its standard C128 format. Data points consist of paired temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical thermal structure of the upper ocean during a specific autumn/winter period.
• Studying historical ocean temperature variability and mixing in the North Atlantic.
• Validating or calibrating ocean model simulations for the 1960s era.
• Researching instrument methodology and data standards for mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) records.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known, documented standard (NODC C128 format).
• Provides precise temporal and spatial context with cruise information, date, position, and time for each observation.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at consistent 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating uniform analysis.

Limitations

• Key structural metadata like row count, column names, and file size are unavailable from all sources.
• Instrument limitation restricts data to the upper ~285 meters of the ocean, excluding deeper thermal features.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' date, listing both 1961-12-24 and 2026-03-05.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from USNS Maurice Rose.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1961-11-04 to 1961-12-24

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:24:49.385594

Geography

North Atlantic Ocean