diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 8eba1ea..4524a7f 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,12 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Common Changelog](https://common-changelog.org/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
+## [1.6.1] - 2024-11-27
+
+### Fixed
+
+- prevent xarray from changing variable types on open_dataset ([#254](https://github.com/nasa/stitchee/pull/254))([**@ank1m**](https://github.com/ank1m))
+
 ## [1.6.0] - 2024-11-19
 
 ### Changed
diff --git a/concatenator/stitchee.py b/concatenator/stitchee.py
index 9da96f4..70a833d 100644
--- a/concatenator/stitchee.py
+++ b/concatenator/stitchee.py
@@ -150,6 +150,7 @@ def stitchee(
                     decode_times=False,
                     decode_coords=False,
                     drop_variables=coord_vars,
+                    mask_and_scale=False,
                 )
 
                 # Determine value for later dataset sorting.
diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index 9283504..aa66d69 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# This file is automatically @generated by Poetry 1.8.4 and should not be changed by hand.
+# This file is automatically @generated by Poetry 1.8.3 and should not be changed by hand.
 
 [[package]]
 name = "appnope"
@@ -2749,22 +2749,22 @@ files = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "tornado"
-version = "6.4.1"
+version = "6.4.2"
 description = "Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library, originally developed at FriendFeed."
 optional = false
 python-versions = ">=3.8"
 files = [
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl", hash = "sha256:163b0aafc8e23d8cdc3c9dfb24c5368af84a81e3364745ccb4427669bf84aec8"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:6d5ce3437e18a2b66fbadb183c1d3364fb03f2be71299e7d10dbeeb69f4b2a14"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl", hash = "sha256:e2e20b9113cd7293f164dc46fffb13535266e713cdb87bd2d15ddb336e96cfc4"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_5_i686.manylinux1_i686.manylinux_2_17_i686.manylinux2014_i686.whl", hash = "sha256:8ae50a504a740365267b2a8d1a90c9fbc86b780a39170feca9bcc1787ff80842"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_5_x86_64.manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:613bf4ddf5c7a95509218b149b555621497a6cc0d46ac341b30bd9ec19eac7f3"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_aarch64.whl", hash = "sha256:25486eb223babe3eed4b8aecbac33b37e3dd6d776bc730ca14e1bf93888b979f"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_i686.whl", hash = "sha256:454db8a7ecfcf2ff6042dde58404164d969b6f5d58b926da15e6b23817950fc4"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:a02a08cc7a9314b006f653ce40483b9b3c12cda222d6a46d4ac63bb6c9057698"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-win32.whl", hash = "sha256:d9a566c40b89757c9aa8e6f032bcdb8ca8795d7c1a9762910c722b1635c9de4d"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1-cp38-abi3-win_amd64.whl", hash = "sha256:b24b8982ed444378d7f21d563f4180a2de31ced9d8d84443907a0a64da2072e7"},
-    {file = "tornado-6.4.1.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:92d3ab53183d8c50f8204a51e6f91d18a15d5ef261e84d452800d4ff6fc504e9"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl", hash = "sha256:e828cce1123e9e44ae2a50a9de3055497ab1d0aeb440c5ac23064d9e44880da1"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:072ce12ada169c5b00b7d92a99ba089447ccc993ea2143c9ede887e0937aa803"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl", hash = "sha256:1a017d239bd1bb0919f72af256a970624241f070496635784d9bf0db640d3fec"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_5_i686.manylinux1_i686.manylinux_2_17_i686.manylinux2014_i686.whl", hash = "sha256:c36e62ce8f63409301537222faffcef7dfc5284f27eec227389f2ad11b09d946"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_5_x86_64.manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:bca9eb02196e789c9cb5c3c7c0f04fb447dc2adffd95265b2c7223a8a615ccbf"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_aarch64.whl", hash = "sha256:304463bd0772442ff4d0f5149c6f1c2135a1fae045adf070821c6cdc76980634"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_i686.whl", hash = "sha256:c82c46813ba483a385ab2a99caeaedf92585a1f90defb5693351fa7e4ea0bf73"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-musllinux_1_2_x86_64.whl", hash = "sha256:932d195ca9015956fa502c6b56af9eb06106140d844a335590c1ec7f5277d10c"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-win32.whl", hash = "sha256:2876cef82e6c5978fde1e0d5b1f919d756968d5b4282418f3146b79b58556482"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2-cp38-abi3-win_amd64.whl", hash = "sha256:908b71bf3ff37d81073356a5fadcc660eb10c1476ee6e2725588626ce7e5ca38"},
+    {file = "tornado-6.4.2.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:92bad5b4746e9879fd7bf1eb21dce4e3fc5128d71601f80005afa39237ad620b"},
 ]
 
 [[package]]
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2fcabb5..b387c4c 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "stitchee"
-version = "1.6.0"
+version = "1.6.1rc2"
 description = "NetCDF4 Along-existing-dimension Concatenation Service"
 authors = ["Daniel Kaufman <daniel.kaufman@nasa.gov>"]
 readme = "README.md"