Mechanical bathyhermograph (MBT)

ICDC Project

: Distribution of MBT-Profiles

Access

UNRESTRICTED

RESTRICTED only accessable in ZMAW net or via CliSAP login What does that mean?

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

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) 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).

Parameters

Name	Unit
Depth	m
Temperature	°C

Coverage, temporal and spatial 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

Data quality

See Gouretski and Reseghetti, 2010.

Contact

Name: Viktor Gouretski

Institute: CliSAP / KlimaCampus / ICDC

email: viktor.gouretski@we dont want spamzmaw.de

References

Gouretski, V. and F. Reseghetti (2010). On depth and temperature biases in bathythermograph data: development of a new correction scheme based on analysis of a global database. Deep Sea Research, I, 57, 812-833.

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.

Data citation

Contact Viktor Gouretski