USS Rowan Bathythermograph Temperature-Depth Profiles 1948-1966
Updated 2mo ago
15files
Available on 2 platforms
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Description
Mechanical bathythermograph data from the USS Rowan provides temperature-depth profiles for the upper ocean layers across the East China Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South Pacific Ocean. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center into the standard C128 format, contains observations from 1948 to 1966. Each record includes cruise information, date, position, time, and paired temperature-depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals.
Use Cases
Analyzing historical upper ocean thermal structure using temperature-depth pairs.
Studying spatial and temporal temperature variability in the western Pacific from position and date columns.
Calibrating or validating ocean model outputs for the upper 285 meters using instrument-specific profile data.
Researching oceanographic cruise patterns and data collection methods from the mid-20th century.
Strengths
Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural consistency.
Provides an 18-year temporal record from 1948-04 29 to 1966-06-29 for analyzing decadal changes.
Contains geographically specific coverage across multiple western Pacific seas and oceans.
Temperature data is recorded at a uniform 5-meter depth interval, facilitating systematic analysis.
Limitations
The maximum observation depth is approximately 285 meters, limiting analysis to the upper ocean only.
Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and file size are unavailable from the provided sources.
There is a conflict in the 'last updated' metadata between platforms (2026-04-01 vs. 1966-06-29).
Provenance
Source
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce
Collection Method
Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument on the USS Rowan and processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).
Time Range
1948-04-29 to 1966-06-29
Freshness
2026-04-01 15:11:25.149252
Geography
East China Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South Pacific Ocean
License information is not provided in the source metadata. The dataset's utility is confined to the upper ocean thermal structure due to instrument depth limitations.