Talk:Zonal (Earth sciences)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. -- Zoe

---

Granted, but since it is a technical term, keeping the entry doesn't seem to do much harm. But I have another complaint: is the notation (x,u) really THE standard notation in atmospheric sciences, or is it just the convention used in some parent article? (If the latter, it should be defined there, not here.) I am not of that field, but recall seeing φ and θ for lat/lon in some papers...Jorge Stolfi 04:04, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

x is used to represent the zonal distance (e.g., in meters or kilometers), while φ and/or λ represent longitude (an angle). Oftentimes it is more convenient to write some equations in terms of a linear distance rather then the product of the trig function of some angle. x can be easily be related to latitude and longitude by the relation dx=a cos(lat) d(lon), where a is the radius of the Earth. -Loren 06:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)