This article is about the prime meridian through Greenwich, London. For Earth's current international standard prime meridian, seeIERS Reference Meridian. For the general concept of prime meridians, seeprime meridian.
Laser projected from theRoyal Observatory, marking the prime meridian of GreenwichTourists queuing to take pictures on the brass line marking the prime meridian at theRoyal Observatory, Greenwich
TheGreenwich meridian is aprime meridian, a geographical reference line that passes through theRoyal Observatory,Greenwich, inLondon, England.[1] From 1884 to 1974, the Greenwichmeridian was the international standard prime meridian, used worldwide for timekeeping and navigation. The modern standard, theIERS Reference Meridian, is based on the Greenwich meridian, but differs slightly from it.[1] This prime meridian (at the time, one ofmany) was first established bySir George Airy (in 1851). In 1883, theInternational Geodetic Association formally recommended to governments that the meridian through Greenwich be adopted as the international standard prime meridian. In October of the following year, at the invitation of thePresident of the United States, 41 delegates from 25 nations met inWashington, D.C., United States, for theInternational Meridian Conference.[2] This inter-governmental conference selected the meridian passing through Greenwich as the world standard prime meridian.[a] However, France abstained from the vote, and French maps continued to use theParis meridian for several decades. In the 18th century, London lexicographerMalachy Postlethwayt published his African maps showing the "Meridian of London" intersecting theEquator a few degrees west of the later meridian andAccra, Ghana.[4]
TheGlobal Positioning System (GPS) receivers show that the marking strip for the prime meridian at Greenwich is not exactly at zero longitude (zero degrees, zero minutes, and zero seconds) but at approximately 5.3seconds of arc to the west of the meridian, meaning that the meridian appears to be 102 metres east. In the past, this offset has been attributed to the establishment of reference meridians for space-based location systems such asWGS-84 (which the GPS relies on) or to the fact that errors gradually crept into theInternational Time Bureau timekeeping process. The actual reason for the discrepancy is that the difference betweengeodetic coordinates and astronomically determined coordinates everywhere remains a localized gravity effect due tovertical deflection; thus, no systematic rotation of global longitudes occurred between the former astronomical system and the current geodetic system.[5]
The line down the middle of this 1911 map is the prime meridian, shown passing throughGreenwich.Saxavord andBalta at the top of the map are in theShetland Islands, the most northerly parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Shetland lies 1° W of the prime meridian.
Before the establishment of a common international prime meridian, most maritime countries establishedtheir own prime meridians, usually passing through the national observatory or other landmark in the country in question. In January 1851, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich established the prime meridian for Great Britain.[6]
In the 19th century, astronomers and geodesists were concerned with questions of longitude and time, because they were responsible for determining them scientifically and used them continually in their studies. TheInternational Geodetic Association, which had covered Europe with a network of fundamental longitudes, took an interest in the question of an internationally-accepted prime meridian at its seventh general conference in Rome in 1883.[7] Indeed, the Association was already providing administrations with the bases for topographical surveys, and engineers with the fundamental benchmarks for their levelling. It seemed natural that it should contribute to the achievement of significant progress in navigation, cartography and geography, as well as in the service of major communications institutions, railways and telegraphs.[8] From a scientific point of view, to be a candidate for the status of international prime meridian, the proponent needed to satisfy three important criteria. According to the report byCarlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, it must have a first-rate astronomical observatory, be directly linked by astronomical observations to other nearby observatories, and be attached to a network of first-rate triangles in the surrounding country.[8] Four major observatories could satisfy these requirements: Greenwich,Paris,Berlin and Washington. The conference concluded that Greenwich Observatory best corresponded to the geographical, nautical, astronomical and cartographic conditions that guided the choice of an international prime meridian, and recommended the governments should adopt it as the world standard.[9] The Conference further hoped that, if the whole world agreed on the unification of longitudes and times by the Association's choosing the Greenwich meridian, Great Britain might respond in favour of the unification of weights and measures, by adhering to theMetre Convention.[10]
In 1884, theInternational Meridian Conference (of government representatives) took place inWashington, D.C. to establish an internationally-recognised single meridian. The meridian chosen was that which passed through the Airy transit circle at Greenwich, and it became the prime meridian of the world for a century. In 1984 it was superseded in that role by theIERS Reference Meridian which, at this latitude, runs about 102 metres to the east of the Greenwich meridian.
At around the time of the 1884 conference, scientists were making measurements to determine thedeflection of the vertical on a large scale.[11] One might expect that plumb lines set up in various locations, if extended downward, would all pass through a single point, the centre of Earth, but this is not the case, primarily due to Earth being anellipsoid, not a sphere. The downward extended plumb lines don't even all intersect the rotation axis of Earth; this much smaller effect is due to the uneven distribution of Earth's mass. To make computations feasible, scientists defined ellipsoids of revolution, more closely emulating the shape of Earth, modified for a particular zone; a published ellipsoid would be a good base line for measurements. The difference between the direction of a plumb line or vertical, and a line perpendicular to the surface of the ellipsoid of revolution – anormal to said ellipsoid – at a particular observatory, is the deflection of the vertical.[12]
AGPS receiver at the marking strip of the Greenwich Meridian in front of theRoyal Observatory. The indicated longitude is not exactly zero because thegeodetic zero meridian on a geocentric reference ellipsoid (which is what GPS positioning yields, using theIERS Reference Meridian) is 102 metres east of this strip.[1]
When the Airy transit circle was built, a mercury basin was used to align the telescope to the perpendicular. Thus the circle was aligned with the local vertical or plumb line, which is deflected slightly from the normal, or line perpendicular, to the reference ellipsoid used to define geodetic latitude and longitude in theInternational Terrestrial Reference Frame (which is nearly the same as theWGS84 system used by theGPS). While Airy's local vertical, set by theapparent centre of gravity of Earth still points to (aligns with) the modern celestial meridian (the intersection of the prime meridian plane with the celestial sphere), it does not pass through Earth's rotation axis. As a result of this, the ITRF zero meridian, defined by a plane passing through Earth's rotation axis, is 102.478 metres to the east of the prime meridian. A 2015 analysis by Malyset al. shows the offset between the former and the latter can be explained by this deflection of the vertical alone; other possible sources of the offset that have been proposed in the past are smaller than the current uncertainty in the deflection of the vertical, locally. The astronomical longitude of the Greenwich prime meridian was found to be 0.19″ ± 0.47″ E, i.e. the plane defined by the local vertical on the Greenwich prime meridian and the plane passing through Earth's rotation axis on the ITRF zero meridian are effectively parallel. Claims, such as that on the BBC website, that the gap between astronomical and geodetic coordinates means thatany measurements of transit time across the IRTF zero meridian will occur precisely 0.352 seconds (or 0.353sidereal seconds) before the transit across the "intended meridian"[13] are based on a failure of understanding. The explanation by Malyset al. on the other hand is more studied and correct.[5]
^Malachy Postlethwayt. (1774) Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. (4th edition) London: W. Strahan, J. & F. Rivington. Vol. 1 "A New and Correct Map of the Coast of Africa".
^"What is the Prime Meridian - and why is it in Greenwich?". Royal Museums Greenwich.In 1850, a new telescope known as the Airy Transit Circle (named after George Biddell Airy, the seventh Astronomer Royal) was designed for the Royal Observatory. From January 1851 it became the instrument that defined the Greenwich Meridian.
Hirsch, A.; von Oppolzer, Th., eds. (1884)."Rapport de la Commission chargée d'examiner les propositions du bureau de l'Association sur l'unification des longitudes et des heures" [Report of the Commission charged with examining the proposals of the Bureau of the Association on the unification of longitudes and times.].Comptes-rendus des seances de la Septiéme Conférence Géodésique Internationale pour la mesure des degrés en Europe. Reunie a Rome du 15 au 24 Octobre 1863 [Proceedings of the Seventh International Geodesic Conference for the measurement of degrees in Europe. Held in Rome from 15 to 24 October, 1863] (in French). Berlin: G. Reimer.
