A Note on Chart Distortions

Extract

Most navigators will, at some time or another, have noticed the effect of changes in humidity on the dimensions of paper maps or charts pinned up for display purposes. A display chart, or any other large sheet of paper, neatly pinned to a notice board in a warm dry room will tend to sag in an untidy manner if the atmosphere is allowed to become damp. Similarly a chart pinned up in a moist atmosphere is liable to contract and tear away from its anchoring pins if the weather becomes warm and dry. In the same way, the size of a paper chart in use in the air will vary appreciably with changes in atmospheric conditions; and it follows that if the size changes, so does the true scale. Such changes in the scale are of little consequence so long as dividers are used for measuring distances, since it can be assumed that the distance graduations on the chart all expand and contract in proportion to the change in size of the sheet as a whole. But if a graduated rule or straight-edge is used (and this is practicable only in the case of maps or charts based on some projection giving near-constancy of scale) then, quite apart from the scale errors of the projection, changes in the size of the chart will give rise to errors.