Marine plankton behavior could predict future marine extinctions, study finds
Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth's warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.
Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth's warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.
Evolution
Apr 17, 2024
0
9
It carries more than 100 times as much water as all the world's rivers combined. It reaches from the ocean's surface to its bottom, and measures as much as 2,000 kilometers across. It connects the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 27, 2024
0
61
English wines could benefit at the expense of French and Italian vines as climate change shifts the landscape in traditional wine growing, according to a new study published on Tuesday.
Agriculture
Mar 26, 2024
0
5
While scientists have observed oceans heating up for decades and theorized that their rising temperatures weaken global currents, a new study led by a University of Maryland researcher documents for the first time a significant ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 25, 2024
0
1761
Space weather forecasters have issued a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, saying an ouburst of plasma from a solar flare could interfere with radio transmissions on Earth. It could also make for great aurora viewing.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 25, 2024
0
451
An international team of scientists has warned against relying on nature providing straightforward 'early warning' indicators of a climate disaster, as new mathematical modeling shows new fascinating aspects of the complexity ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 22, 2024
0
691
Spring has officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere is embracing autumn. The start of astronomical spring, known as the vernal equinox, occurred yesterday, March 19, 2024, at 11:06 p.m. ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 20, 2024
0
0
Permafrost, or ground that is frozen for two or more years, stretches over about 14 million square kilometers in the Northern Hemisphere, 15% of the hemisphere's land area. Cold temperatures limit the decomposition of organic ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 4, 2024
0
1
The Hadley circulation is a key atmospheric circulation pattern in the tropics. It helps even out the temperature between the equator and the poles by moving energy and momentum toward higher latitudes. However, recent studies ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 31, 2024
0
42
The Jovian Vortex Hunter project, launched on Zooniverse in June 2022, is out of data as of December 23, 2023.
Planetary Sciences
Jan 29, 2024
0
4
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.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA