Mechanical bathyhermograph (MBT)

Topics

• Access
• Description
• Parameters
• Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution
• Data quality
• Contact person
• References
• Data citation and License

Access

UNRESTRICTED:

• Get MBT data in ASCII format via FTP

RESTRICTED: This link to the data set is only available for a restricted user group.  The data set is only accessible in CEN/MPI net or accessible from external nets with a customer account.  Please contact ICDC if you would like to access this data from outside the network.

• Data access via file system:  /data/icdc/ocean/mbt

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Description

Mechanical bathyhermograph (MBT) measured temperature down to the depth of about 250 m from a slowly moving ship. Since the 1940s and before the introduction of the expendable bathythermograph (XBT) the MBTs contributed the majority of the subsurface temperature measurements in the ocean. The MBT data were shown to be biased due to systematic errors in depth (pressure) and temperature sensors. Using original MBT data from the World ocean database WOD09 (Boyer et al., 2009, see references) we provide a data product which includes depth- and temperature-corrected MBT profiles. The correction method is based on the recent study by Gouretski and Reseghetti, 2010 (see references). This dataset was produced as an ICDC project.

Last update of data set at ICDC: Feb 2011

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Parameters

Parameters of the MBT data set

Name	Unit
Depth	m
Temperature	°C

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Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

• 1940 until today
• No temporal resolution, different number of profiles of different length obtained during various measurement campaigns.

Coverage and spatial resolution:

• Global (see figure on top of page)
• Spatial resolution: None, sampling along the cruise tracks depends on measurement campaign
• Geographic Latitude: -90°N to 90°N
• Geographic Longitude: 0°E to 360°E
• Dimension: 1 column x 1 row x N measurements along the vertical profile
• Altitude: N depths, vertical profiles

Format:

• ASCII

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Data quality

See Gouretski and Reseghetti, 2010 in references.

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Contact

Stefan Kern
ICDC / CEN / University of Hamburg
E-Mail: stefan.kern"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Remon Sadikni
ICDC / CEN / University of Hamburg
E-Mail: remon.sadikni"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Annika Jahnke-Bornemann
ICDC / CEN / University of Hamburg
E-Mail: annika.jahnke-bornemann"AT"uni-hamburg.de

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References

Literature:

• Viktor Gouretski, Franco Reseghetti, On depth and temperature biases in bathythermograph data: Development of a new correction scheme based on analysis of a global ocean database, Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers,
  VoI. 57 (6), 2010, p. 812-833, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2010.03.011.
• T. P. Boyer, J. I. Antonov, O. K. Baranova, H. E. Garcia, D. R. Johnson, R. A. Locarnini, A. V. Mishonov, T. D. O’Brien, D. Seidov, I. V. Smolyar, M. M. Zweng, 2009: World Ocean Database 2009, Chapter 1: Introduction, NOAA Atlas NESDIS 66, Ed. S. Levitus, U.S. Gov. Printing Office, Wash., D.C., 216 pp., DVD.  (pdf, not barrier-free)

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Data citation, License, and Acknowledgments

Please cite the data as follows:

Gouretski, V.,  2011: Mechanical bathyhermograph (MBT)  data set, provided by ICDC, CEN, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

License

The data was published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0).

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