Meters or feet: why the app shows both
The global model behind the 70-meter map is computed in meters, most of the world reads them in meters, and the parts that do not still expect feet. How the switch works, and why it never changes the calculation.
Published on 2 min read
Sea Level shows elevation in meters, and a switch in Settings shows it in feet. This is not currency conversion; it is unit conversion, and the difference carries more meaning than people think. The interesting part is what does not change when you flip it.
The default is meters, and it is a decision
The scenario itself is defined in meters. The most-cited estimate of the full-melt pool is around 70 meters of sea-level equivalent, and every step of the map computation, from the 30-meter grid to the flood fill, works in meters. The units are not decoration wrapped around a raw value: the model, the thresholds and the warnings are all calibrated in the same system. When the app warns you that you are below the line, the 70-meter line is the number that actually fired.
Start in meters, then, because meters is the language of the science the app is presenting, and because the people who set the international baseline for elevation, the orthometric heights, publish in meters. Feet is a second language, offered out of respect for the places that genuinely think in it.
Why not just one
A United States user asking "how high am I?" has been asking in feet since before there was a global grid, and a mountain quoted in meters over there is a mountain quoted in a foreign currency. Asking someone to mentally convert every measurement is asking them to tense up the whole session. The switch exists for that, and only for that.
What the switch does not do is more interesting. It changes display, not data. The same ground height, the same sensor blend, the same 70-meter threshold: only the last pixel of the number changes. The meters value stays the source of truth, and the feet value is derived, which is exactly the opposite of the pattern that produces rounded and slightly wrong conversions everywhere.
The comparison that stays honest
The strongest screen in the app is the one that says how deep your position sits below the 70-meter rise, and that comparison survives the unit switch verbatim. In meters you are, say, 42 meters below the line. In feet that is 138 feet below the line. Both read naturally, both mean the same thing, and neither needs the other to be understood. That is the test a good unit switch has to pass: it should not make you redo the arithmetic in your head, or the switch has failed its one job.
A final detail for the pedants, and this is a post for them: the app rounds to whole units for reading, not for computing. The display is rounded, the threshold is not. A place at 69.6 meters is warned as around 70 by a reviewer and as 69.6 by the app, and only one of those can make a wall.