ABSTRACT 



This inventory of expendable bathythermograph (XBT) observations along 

 transects in U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coastal waters adds to the Ship of Oppor- 

 tunity Program XBT data listed in the former publication "Expendable Bathy- 

 thermograph Observations From the NMFS/MARAD Ship of Opportunity Program for 

 19 " (years 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975). It depicts monthly transect 

 locations along which XBT observations were made and for which XBT data are 

 available at NODC; provides a tabular summary of the data by ship name, cruise 

 number, station number, dates, and NODC reference number; includes a sample 

 plot of the data for one transect; and describes how and in what forms the 

 data can be obtained. 



INTRODUCTION 



In midyear 1970 a cooperative expendable bathythermography (XBT) program 

 was initiated between the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Maritime 

 Administration (MARAD) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The program, con- 

 ducted in support of the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Predic- 

 tion Program of NMFS involved the use of midshipmen trained at the U.S. Mer- 

 chant Marine Academy, Kings Point, N.Y., to gather XBT data on board various 

 merchant ships along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. The 

 objective of this cooperative program was to identify and describe seasonal 

 and year-to-year variations of temperature and circulation in major currents 

 of the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and western North 

 Atlantic, using merchant ships as relatively inexpensive platforms for the 

 collection of data. 



Results of each year's cooperative program activity were made available in 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service's publication titled "Expendable Bathy- 

 thermograph Observations From the NMFS/MARAD Ship of Opportunity Program for 

 19 " (years 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975--see literature cited). Begin- 

 ning with this inventory, the availability of NMFS/MARAD Ship of Opportunity 

 Program XBT data will be announced in an annual inventory such as this. 



DESCRIPTION OF DATA AND DATA PRODUCTS 



This inventory contains monthly location plots of transects along which 

 XBT observations were made in 1976 and for which the processed XBT data are 

 available in NODC's XBT data file. Each transect is identified by letter on 

 the location plots and in column one of table 1, which is a chronological list- 

 ing of cruise time, location, and identification information. Data for any 

 transect are available from NODC in a variety of forms. One form is the tran- 

 sect-plot graphic shown as figure 1. This graphic comprises a station location 

 plot, a plot of surface seawater temperature and salinity along the transect, 

 and two temperature vertical -section plots that can be produced over specified 

 depth ranges. 



