Nautical chart great circle routes. NOAA uses the polyconic projection for some of its charts of the Great Lakes, at both large and small scales. Positions of places shown on the chart can be measured from the longitude and latitude scales on the borders of the chart, relative to a geodetic datum such as WGS 84. A bearing is the angle between the line joining the two points of interest and the line from one of the points to the north, such as a ship's course or a compass reading to a landmark. On nautical charts, the top of the chart is
Thermal equator both "summer" and "winter." Chennai, India, at 13 degrees north is considered to lie on the thermal equator at its longitude (80 degrees east). Thermal equator The thermal equator (also known as "the heat equator") is a belt encircling the Earth, defined by the set of locations having the highest mean annual temperature at each longitude around the globe. Because local temperatures are sensitive to the geography of a region, mountain ranges and ocean currents ensure that smooth temperature gradients (such as might be found if the Earth were uniform in composition and devoid of surface irregularities) are impossible, the