Historical Ocean Temperature Profiles from USS WEDDERBURN 1952-1959

1952-08-14 to 1959-10-15 temperature-depth profiles collected by the USS WEDDERBURN using Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instruments in the Coral Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, and South Pacific Ocean. The dataset, processed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the standard C128 format, contains pairs of temperature and depth values recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals. It provides a multi-year record of the thermal structure of the ocean's upper layers to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature-depth relationships in the upper 285 meters of the ocean.
• Studying spatial and temporal variability of the thermocline in the Pacific Ocean from 1952-1959.
• Calibrating or validating ocean model hindcasts for the mid-20th century.
• Investigating cruise-based oceanographic surveys and their data collection methods.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent 7-year time series from 1952 to 1959 across multiple Pacific Ocean regions.
• Data is standardized to the NODC C128 format, ensuring a uniform structure of temperature-depth pairs at 5-meter intervals.
• Each observation includes associated metadata such as cruise information, date, position, and time.

Limitations

• Instrument limitation: MBT data is only useful for the upper ocean, with a maximum observation depth of ~285 meters.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided in the available metadata.
• Conflicting freshness: The data collection ended in 1959, but metadata records show a platform update date of 2026-03-05.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce, via the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Collection Method

Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) instrument measurements processed to the NODC standard C128 format.

Time Range

1952-08-14 to 1959-10-15

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:31:35.385004 (metadata update on datagov); original data collection ended 1959-10-15.

Geography

Coral Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Philippine Sea, South Pacific Ocean