Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from Bathythermographs, 1947-1983

7,537 bathythermograph observations of water depth and temperature collected from over 45 different ships. The data was submitted by Ted Dalzell of the Hydro Department in Birkenhead, UK, and spans from August 1947 to October 1983. It is now available online through NOAA NCEI in C116 and C128 file formats.

Use Cases

• Modeling historical ocean temperature trends based on the 36-year time series
• Analyzing vertical water temperature profiles based on bathythermograph depth data
• Calibrating modern oceanographic models with historical baseline data
• Studying data collection methods and coverage from mid-20th century ship-based platforms

Strengths

• Contains 7,537 individual observations
• Covers a 36-year time period from 1947 to 1983
• Data collected from over 45 different ships, suggesting broad spatial coverage

Limitations

• Last updated 1983-10-09 00:00:00; freshness should be verified
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Data may reflect temporal and geographic bias inherent to ship-based collection methods of the era

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI

Collection Method

Ship-based bathythermograph (XBT/MBT) measurements submitted on tape and converted to digital formats.

Time Range

1947-08 14 to 1983-10-09

Freshness

Historical dataset; last observation date is 1983-10-09.

Geography

Data collected from ships including VIGO and ST KITTS; likely global ocean coverage.