Talk:Height above mean sea level

Above mean sea level mean
What is the altitude above mean sea level all earth's lands, together, have? Is there any known answer to this question? It would fit here I think... Undead Herle King (talk) 00:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

No article mentions this? No one knows what it is? Really? Does it is trivial data or what? Undead Herle King (talk) 02:01, 6 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It's in sea level and dry land. Fgnievinski (talk) 04:51, 9 August 2015 (UTC)


 * According to this NOAA report and other sources, it's approximately 800 m. The estimate doesn't really fit the current version of this article, but it does appear in Earth and Land. —173.56.111.206 (talk) 00:09, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Vertical metre merge (2017)
just wrote a new article, vertical metre, which is similar (although not perfectly identical) to this one. I would recommend merging the two, because of the strong overlap. There is a proliferation of very short articles about measuring vertical height, and I don't think any of them will ever become B-class. —hike395 (talk) 13:25, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Except that they have distinct meanings. Height above sea level is a distance, measured from a datum, and may be in any linear unit (typically feet or metres). A vertical metre is a specific linear unit, not a distance, and is typically used to measure intermediate distances, i.e. not from a datum, or to measure cumulative height gains. The article is inevitably short because it's only just been created and, in any case, articles on units tend to be short because, well, they're quite easy to explain. Shortness has a beauty and simplicity of its own, lol. But feel free to flesh it out. I came across several specialist uses for vertical metres of which I've cited just a couple... --Bermicourt (talk) 13:36, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Per WP:OVERLAP (and WP:DICDEF), our readers don't need separate articles on every term for measuring height/altitude/elevation. I think our readers would benefit from a broader single article that compares and contrasts all of the different ways of performing that measurement. That would be a useful and interesting article that can easily become B-class (or better). —hike395 (talk) 13:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a valid point, but much wider than these 2 articles which aren't a good merge in themselves. Metre and vertical metre might be a better option since they're both units, but they would need reworking. Simply jamming the text together would create an odd article IMHO. Suggest you raise the overall point at WP:WikiProject Measurement, maybe with proposals for specific article mergers in the field of height/elevation/altitude. For example, despite the outcome of the discussion above, it seems sensible to have one article on "height above sea level" and include "feet above sea level" and "metres above sea level" and the various datums used in all of that. But I bet that will be problematic because of the US/non-US divide over the use of elevation vs. height and feet vs. metres. Which may partly explain the present situation. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:33, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Sadly WP:WikiProject Measurement is inactive. One possibility is to combine a bunch of "vertical measurement" articles into height, because that title is the most general of all. Let me try to write a merged article and see how it looks. —hike395 (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

"Vertical metre" is an aberration: it flies in the face of the Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) -- of which metre is part of, before you say we should not be bound by the tyranny of the SI. More specifically, section 7.5 (Unacceptability of mixing information with units) states: "When one gives the value of a quantity, any information concerning the quantity or its conditions of measurement must be presented in such a way as not to be associated with the unit. This means that quantities must be defined so that they can be expressed solely in acceptable units (...) Examples: the Pb content is 5 ng/L but not: 5 ng Pb/L or 5 ng of lead/L" For this reason, "vertical metre" should be merged to above mean sea level. fgnievinski (talk) 18:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I never got around to writing a merged article proposal. —hike395 (talk) 03:10, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Could you please address the SI issue raised above. fgnievinski (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Just "Above sea level"?
would you reconsider your previous opposition to renaming the present article if we adopted simply Above sea level, instead of Meters above sea level, thus avoiding the hatnote "Feet above sea level redirects here"? Would you agree that the concept is more important than the units? fgnievinski (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , although this was a long time ago, I fully support your initiative without any objections. Keep up the good work.  R fassbind  – talk  22:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 16 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved.  Calidum   05:08, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Metres above sea level → Above sea level – to avoid hatnote "Feet above sea level redirects here". fgnievinski (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. –Ammarpad (talk) 04:55, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Move to Distance above sea level. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the above discussion, which closed quite recently.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 09:51, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the above discussion In ictu oculi (talk) 08:09, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Distance avoids ENGVAR issues in the title at least Red   Slash  21:43, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Height is more appropriate than distance in this case, and "height" has already been rejected recently, so oppose. Dekimasu よ! 19:04, 29 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.