English

The area of rhumb polygons

Geophysics 2024-10-24 v1

Abstract

The formula for the area of a rhumb polygon, a polygon whose edges are rhumb lines on an ellipsoid of revolution, is derived and a method is given for computing the area accurately. This paper also points out that standard methods for computing rhumb lines give inaccurate results for nearly east- or west-going lines; this problem is remedied by the systematic use of divided differences.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.03219,
  title  = {The area of rhumb polygons},
  author = {Charles F. F. Karney},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.03219},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

RevTex, 10 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:03:39.042Z