Temperature and depth error in the Mechanical Bathythermograph data from the Indian Ocean

Abstract

For arriving at realistic estimates of warming rate of oceans at regional and global level, it is important to understand persistent biases in observations of ocean temperature. In the present study, collocated MBT and CTD data from the Indian Ocean are used to understand the observed errors in temperature and depth of MBT data. The estimated error from the match up data shows that both temperature and depth measurement of MBT are over estimated, compared to CTD measurements. Estimated thermal bias is 0.14°C during the study period, which is significantly higher compared to earlier reports. The corrected MBT data for thermal bias and depth error shows a significant reduction in the existing error.