Historical Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS Rupertus, 1948-1959

The East China Sea, Japan Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South China Sea are covered by this dataset of mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) observations from the USS Rupertus. It contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format. Data collection spans from March 15, 1948, to March 31, 1959.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m) using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying decadal temperature changes in specific basins like the East China Sea or Philippine Sea from cruise, date, and position data.
• Calibrating or validating regional ocean models with historical in-situ profile data recorded at 5m depth intervals.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent 11-year time series (1948-1959) for analyzing decadal trends.
• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring a uniform structure of temperature-depth pairs at 5m intervals.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData signals recognized archival importance.

Limitations

• Critical metadata conflicts exist: Data.gov lists a last updated date of 2026-04-01, while NASA EarthData lists 1959-03 31.
• Core descriptive facts like row count, file size, specific column names, and license are unknown across all sources.
• Instrument limitation: MBT maximum depth is approximately 285 meters, restricting analysis to the ocean's upper layers only.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed by NODC to the C128 format.

Time Range

1948-03-15 to 1959-03-31

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:31:45.902964

Geography

East China Sea, Japan Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South China Sea