Ordnance Survey (O.S) has announced that Britain’s highest mountain is actually a metre higher than previously thought.
Ben Nevis was previously thought to be 1,344 metres. The official height is now 1,345 metres.
But the extra metre gained isn’t the result of some geological phenomenon. It’s more so down to a miscalculation in the original survey.
The announcement from O.S on Twitter
“Three surveyors used a geodetic survey grade GPS receiver for two hours of constant data communication with satellites orbiting the earth,” announced O.S in a statement on its website today.
The original calculation of Ben Nevis was made in 1949. Back then it took a team of seven surveyors 20 nights to obtain their calculation using hundreds of pounds of kit hauled up the mountain.
“The new height relates to the highest natural point on the summit and was measured as 1344.527m,” said Mark Greaves who was the first person to discover Ben Nevis had grown. “What is amazing is how close the surveyors in 1949 were. The measured height has changed by centimetres, but those centimetres mean we now need to round up rather than down. So that’s why Ben Nevis will now be officially known as being 1,345m.”
Main image by Derek Young (Shutterstock)
