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The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometry, geographical survey, sport, or atmospheric pressure). Although the term altitude is commonly used to mean the height above sea level of a location, in geography the term elevation is often preferred for this usage.
Therefore, the altitude and azimuth of an object in the sky changes with time, as the object appears to drift across the sky with Earth's rotation. In addition, since the horizontal system is defined by the observer's local horizon, [ a ] the same object viewed from different locations on Earth at the same time will have different values of ...
The term elevation is mainly used when referring to points on the Earth's surface, while altitude or geopotential height is used for points above the surface, such as an aircraft in flight or a spacecraft in orbit, and depth is used for points below the surface. Elevation histogram of the Earth's surface
Geopotential height or geopotential altitude is a vertical coordinate referenced to Earth's mean sea level (assumed zero geopotential) that represents the work involved in lifting one unit of mass over one unit of length through a hypothetical space in which the acceleration of gravity is assumed constant. [1]
For positions on the Earth or other solid celestial body, the reference plane is usually taken to be the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Instead of the radial distance r geographers commonly use altitude above or below some local reference surface (vertical datum), which, for example, may be the mean sea level.
The Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system (acronym ECEF), also known as the geocentric coordinate system, is a cartesian spatial reference system that represents locations in the vicinity of the Earth (including its surface, interior, atmosphere, and surrounding outer space) as X, Y, and Z measurements from its center of mass.
Definition of the parametric latitude (β) on the ellipsoid. The parametric latitude or reduced latitude, β, is defined by the radius drawn from the centre of the ellipsoid to that point Q on the surrounding sphere (of radius a) which is the projection parallel to the Earth's axis of a point P on the ellipsoid at latitude ϕ.
Furthermore, if the point is attached to the Earth (e.g., a mountain peak), then altitude (height above sea level) is called elevation. [2] In a two-dimensional Cartesian space, height is measured along the vertical axis (y) between a specific point and another that does not have the same y-value.