CSIRO Land and Water, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
Oecologia. 2013 Feb;171(2):335-7. doi: 10.1007/s00442-012-2416-7. Epub 2012 Aug 18.
Effective communication regarding distance in the vertical dimension is critical for many ecological, climatological and broader geophysical studies of the Earth. Confusion exists regarding the definition of three English words commonly used to describe the vertical dimension: (1) elevation; (2) altitude; and (3) height. While used interchangeably in "everyday" non-technical English, here we provide explicit definitions and strongly recommend their use in scientific literature. We briefly discuss the likely origins of the sub-optimal use of these three words due to translations between languages. Finally, we provide examples of how using these terms, as explicitly defined herein, improves scientific communication.
有效沟通距离的垂直维度是至关重要的许多生态、气候和更广泛的地球物理学研究。存在混淆关于三个常用的英文单词来描述垂直维度：（1）海拔；（2）高度；（3）高度。虽然在“日常”非技术英语中可以互换使用，但在这里我们提供了明确的定义，并强烈建议在科学文献中使用。我们简要讨论了由于语言之间的翻译而导致这三个词使用不当的可能原因。最后，我们提供了一些示例，说明如何使用这些术语，如本文所明确定义的，提高科学交流。
