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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] In SI units, a geopotential height ...
The reference value for ρ b for b = 0 is the defined sea level value, ρ 0 = 1.2250 kg/m 3 or 0.0023768908 slug/ft 3. Values of ρ b of b = 1 through b = 6 are obtained from the application of the appropriate member of the pair equations 1 and 2 for the case when h = h b+1. [2]
at each geopotential altitude, where g is the standard acceleration of gravity, and R specific is the specific gas constant for dry air (287.0528J⋅kg −1 ⋅K −1). The solution is given by the barometric formula. Air density must be calculated in order to solve for the pressure, and is used in calculating dynamic pressure for moving vehicles.
A static atmospheric model has a more limited domain, excluding time. A standard atmosphere is defined by the World Meteorological Organization as "a hypothetical vertical distribution of atmospheric temperature, pressure and density which, by international agreement, is roughly representative of year-round, midlatitude conditions."
Geodetic latitude and geocentric latitude have different definitions. Geodetic latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and the surface normal at a point on the ellipsoid, whereas geocentric latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and a radial line connecting the centre of the ellipsoid to a point on the surface (see figure).
Geopotential is the potential of the Earth's gravity field. For convenience it is often defined as the negative of the potential energy per unit mass , so that the gravity vector is obtained as the gradient of the geopotential, without the negation.
In 1950, Charney, Fjørtoft, and von Neumann integrated this equation (with an added diffusion term on the right-hand side) on a computer for the first time, using an observed field of 500 hPa geopotential height for the first timestep. [3] This was one of the first successful instances of numerical weather prediction.
To allow modeling conditions below mean sea level, the troposphere is actually extended to −2,000 feet (−610 m), where the temperature is 66.1 °F (18.9 °C), pressure is 15.79 pounds per square inch (108,900 Pa), and density is 0.08106 pounds per cubic foot (1.2985 kg/m 3).