YAQUINA Bathythermograph Upper Ocean Temperature Profiles 1970

NOAA_NCEI provides mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) data from the YAQUINA cruise in the North Pacific Ocean. The dataset contains temperature-depth profile pairs recorded at uniform 5-meter intervals down to a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters. Data was collected over a four-day period from January 6 to January 9, 1970, and processed into the NODC standard C128 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the vertical temperature structure of the upper ocean using paired temperature-depth values.
• Studying short-term thermal variability in a specific region from the recorded date, time, and position for each observation.
• Investigating historical oceanographic conditions from a standardized (C128 format) cruise dataset.
• Calibrating or validating models of upper ocean heat content using instrument-specific depth-limited profiles.

Strengths

• Data is processed to a recognized standard format (NODC C128) ensuring consistent structure.
• Provides precise temporal coverage for a specific cruise from January 6-9, 1970.
• Temperature measurements are recorded at uniform 5-meter depth intervals, facilitating analysis.

Limitations

• Key structural metadata like column names, row count, and file size are unknown across all sources.
• The dataset's utility is limited to the upper ocean, as MBT observations have a maximum depth of approximately 285 meters.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between platforms (2026-03-05 on datagov vs. 1970-01-09 on nasa_earthdata).

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information)

Collection Method

Collected via mechanical bathythermograph (MBT) instrument from the YAQUINA cruise and processed by NODC.

Time Range

1970-01-06 to 1970-01-09

Freshness

2026-03 05 22:40:21.066127

Geography

North Pacific Ocean (YAQUINA cruise location)