Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS Mission Santa Ynez

Temperature-depth profile data collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) aboard the USS Mission Santa Ynez in the North Pacific Ocean. The dataset contains observations from a single cruise spanning September to November 1966, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. Each record provides cruise information, date, position, time, and paired temperature-depth values at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (0-285m) using temperature-depth pairs.
• Studying seasonal ocean temperature changes in the North Pacific during fall 1966 using date and position columns.
• Calibrating or validating historical ocean model simulations with precisely located in-situ measurements.
• Investigating cruise-specific oceanographic conditions via the reported cruise information and observation time.

Strengths

• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring a consistent structure for analysis.
• Provides high vertical resolution temperature data at uniform 5-meter depth intervals.
• Covers a specific temporal range (1966-09-04 to 1966-11-24) from a single, documented research cruise.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts: row count, column names, size, license, and author are reported as 'unknown' or 'None' across all platforms.
• Limited depth coverage (max ~285m) restricts utility to studies of the ocean's upper layers only.
• Dataset age (1966) may limit relevance for contemporary studies without complementary modern data.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), originally from USS Mission Santa Ynez.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1966-09-04 to 1966-11-24

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:58:52.477855

Geography

North Pacific Ocean