Table 165 4g5 



SCALE VARIATION FOR STANDARD MAP PROJECTIONS 1 



Three map projections are widely used in meteorology, the polar stereographic, the 

 Lambert conformal conic, and the Mercator, each of which is conformal. That is, the 

 shape of any small area on the map is the same as the shape of the corresponding small 

 area of the earth, all angles are preserved (except at the pole on the Lambert and 

 Mercator projections), and the scale is the same in all directions at any point, a function 

 only of the latitude of the point for a given assumed figure of the earth. 



Am = skAn 

 where : 



An= (small) distance on the earth, 



Am = corresponding (small) distance on the map, 



s = map scale at standard parallel, 



k = scale factor for latitude in question. 



Values of k are tabulated below assuming the figure of the earth to be spherical and 

 assuming the figure to be that of the International Ellipsoid of Reference. 



the original paper have been corrected by recomputation.) 



SMITHSONIAN METEOROLOGICAL TABLES 



