Latitude exact relationship of parallels and meridians with horizontal and vertical: both are complicated curves. On the sphere the normal passes through the centre and the latitude () is therefore equal to the angle subtended at the centre by the meridian arc from the equator to the point concerned. If the meridian distance is denoted by then where denotes the mean radius of the Earth. is equal to . No higher accuracy is appropriate for since higher-precision results necessitate an ellipsoid model. With this value for the meridian length of 1 degree of latitude on the sphere is (60.0 nautical miles).
Latitude package Maxima and expresses the coefficients in terms of both eccentricity and flattening. The series method is not applicable to the isometric latitude and one must use the conformal latitude in an intermediate step. The following plot shows the difference between the geodetic latitude and the auxiliary latitudes other than the isometric latitude (which diverges to infinity at the poles) for the case of the WGS84 ellipsoid. In every case the auxiliary latitude is the less (in magnitude) than the geodetic latitude. The differences shown on the plot are in arc minutes. The horizontal resolution of the plot fails to