An announcement (which read as follows) was recently Issued by the 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory Honolulu, concern- 

 ing an error in depths of reversal computed from the readings of unpro- 

 tected and protected reversing thermometers 



"Recer.tly it vas discovered thac the depths of reversal of 

 the Nansen bottles as calculated at the Honolulu Biological Laboratory 

 from temperature differences of unprotected a^d protected reversing 

 thermometers, are in error These depths, which are in excess of the 

 correct depth, may be reduced to the proper value by the use of a cor- 

 rection factor, as described below, 



At the time the data processing system in use at this laboratory 

 was being established, a table of the factor l/CQxpm.') was prepared for 

 use in computing the depths of reversal from the readings of unprotected 

 thermometers; Q represents the pressure- constant of an unprotected ther- 

 mometer, and p m represents the mean density of the water column above 

 the depth of thermometer reversal, which was taken to be 1,0303 in all 

 cases, An error occurred In the calculation such that, instead of 

 l/CQxptn), the table consisted of values of (1/Q)»p m , This error is 

 present in all of the depth data which have been published by this labo- 

 ratory under its previous name Pacific Oceanic Fishery Investigations, 

 and under its present "ame Honolulu Biological Laboratory up to a^d 

 including I960. Therefore tr making use of the data published by this 

 laboratory before 1961 all depths should be corrected by dividing each 

 by (jP m ) , which is equal to 1.0615 Multiplication of all the published 

 depths by 0.9<*2 will give the proper value for the depth of each observa- 

 tion." 



Subsequent analyses have shov e error described above is present 

 only in the data from those cru isels of the Bureau of 



Commercial Fisheries Biol >• Honolulu after Hu g h M. S mith 



cruise 20 (February*Apri1 hlcb data containing this 



error have bee'- pul appropriate publica- 



tion references 



U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 Honolulu, T. H. 



Special Scientific Report: Fisheries No. 168 

 WASHINGTON: JANUARY 1956 



