News tagged with latitude
Researchers discover Icelandic current, change North Atlantic climate picture
An international team of researchers, including physical oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has confirmed the presence of a deep-reaching ocean circulation system off Iceland ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 21, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (13) |
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New study links dust to increased glacier melting, ocean productivity
A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. The dust is both accelerating glacial melting ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 01, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (13) |
4
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It's dim up north
The farther that human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains, according to a new study by Oxford University. But it turns out that this is not because they are smarter, but because they ...
Jul 27, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (12) |
26
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Dell's Latitude Z introduces wireless charging (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- Dell has introduced its new ultra-thin Latitude Z laptop with the world's first wireless laptop battery charger.
Why Europe's climate faces a stormy future
(PhysOrg.com) -- Europe is likely to be hit by more violent winter storms in the future. Now a new study into the effects of climate change has found out why.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 03, 2012 |
4 / 5 (12) |
19
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Deforestation causes cooling, study shows
Deforestation, considered by scientists to contribute significantly to global warming, has been shown by a Yale-led team to actually cool the local climate in northern latitudes, according to a paper published today in Nature.
Nov 16, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
27
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Afforestation will hardly dent warming problem: study
Schemes to convert croplands or marginal lands to forests will make almost no inroads against global warming this century, a scientific study published on Sunday said.
Jun 19, 2011 |
4.2 / 5 (9) |
15
Volcanoes cool the tropics, say researchers
Climate researchers have shown that big volcanic eruptions over the past 450 years have temporarily cooled weather in the tropics—but suggest that such effects may have been masked in the 20th century by rising ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 05, 2009 |
3.1 / 5 (12) |
9
Warm water causes extra-cold winters in northeastern North America and Northeastern Asia
If you're sitting on a bench in New York City's Central Park in winter, you're probably freezing. After all, the average temperature in January is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But if you were just across the pond ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 30, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (7) |
57
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Warming in the Tasman Sea a global warming hot spot
Oceanographers have identified a series of ocean hotspots around the world generated by strengthening wind systems that have driven oceanic currents, including the East Australian Current, polewards beyond their known boundaries.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (6) |
0
Epic volcanic activity flooded Mercury's north polar region
(PhysOrg.com) -- Ever since the Mariner 10 mission in 1974 snapped the first pictures of Mercury, planetary scientists have been intrigued by smooth plains covering parts of the surface. Some suspected past ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Sep 29, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (6) |
2
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Further, faster, higher: Wildlife responds increasingly rapidly to climate change
New research by scientists in the Department of Biology at the University of York shows that species have responded to climate change up to three times faster than previously appreciated. These results are published in the ...
Aug 18, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
0
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Observations of climate change from indigenous Alaskans
Personal interviews with Alaska Natives in the Yukon River Basin provide unique insights on climate change and its impacts, helping develop adaptation strategies for these local communities.
Sep 13, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
4
Why are California birds getting bigger?
Alfred Hitchcock would have appreciated this twist: The birds in central California are getting bigger.
Nov 11, 2011 |
3 / 5 (8) |
17
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Sun unleashes powerful X-class solar flare
The Sun has been quiet recently but early today (04:13 UTC on March 5, 2012) it unleashed a powerful X1-class solar flare and coronal mass ejection. The latest estimates indicate the CME will probably miss Earth, but hit ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 06, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
0
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees (marked with °). The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north (written 90° N or +90°), and the South pole has a latitude of 90° south (written 90° S or −90°). Together, latitude and longitude can be used as a geographic coordinate system to specify any location on the globe.
Curves of constant latitude on the Earth (running east-west) are referred to as lines of latitude, or parallels. Each line of latitude is actually a circle on the Earth parallel to the equator, and for this reason lines of latitude are also known as circles of latitude. In spherical geometry, lines of latitude are examples of circles of a sphere, with the equator being a great circle.
Latitude (usually denoted by the Greek letter phi (φ)) is often measured in degrees, minutes and seconds. The Eiffel Tower has a latitude of 48° 51′ 29″ N-- that is, 48 degrees plus 51 minutes plus 29 seconds. Or latitude may be measured entirely in degrees, e.g. 48.85806° N.
If the Earth were actually spherical, and homogenous, and not rotating, then latitude at a point would just be the angle between a vertical line at that point and the plane of the equator. Everywhere on Earth a vertical line would point to the center of the Earth. In reality the earth is rotating and is not spherical, so a vertical line — a line in the direction of apparent gravity — doesn't point to the center of the Earth (except at the poles and the equator). If the Earth were homogenous, then a vertical line would still point to some point on the Earth's axis, and latitude at a point would still be the angle between the vertical line there and the plane of the equator.
But the Earth is not homogenous, and has mountains-- which have gravity and so can shift the vertical line away from the Earth's axis. The vertical line still intersects the plane of the equator at some angle; that angle is astronomical latitude, the latitude you would calculate from star observations. The latitude shown on maps and GPS devices is the angle between a not-quite-vertical line through the point and the plane of the equator; the not-quite-vertical line is perpendicular to the surface of the spheroid chosen to approximate the Earth's sea-level surface, rather than perpendicular to the sea-level surface itself.
For more information about Latitude, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.