Historical Pacific Ocean Temperature Profiles from 1944

Temperature-depth profiles from the mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument aboard the WINTLE, processed into the NODC C128 standard format. The dataset covers a specific 1944 cruise across the Coral Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Solomon Sea, and South Pacific Ocean. Data was collected and processed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).

Use Cases

• Analyzing the thermal structure of the upper ocean (up to ~285m) in the Pacific during 1944.
• Studying temperature variation with depth at uniform 5-meter intervals for specific cruise locations.
• Correlating historical ocean temperature conditions with cruise metadata including date, position, and time.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a known standard format (NODC C128), ensuring structural consistency.
• Provides precise temporal coverage for a specific 1944 cruise from January 24 to October 5.
• Contains geographically specific records from multiple Pacific Ocean regions (Coral Sea, North Pacific, Solomon Sea, South Pacific).

Limitations

• The maximum observation depth of ~285 meters limits analysis to the ocean's upper layers 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: one source states 2026-03-05, while another states the original data date of 1944-10-05.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1944-01 24 to 1944-10-05

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:22:50.213692

Geography

Coral Sea, North Pacific Ocean, Solomon Sea, South Pacific Ocean.