In general, the word scale is used to suggest the magnitude of a thing or measurement (as in "large-scale structure of the universe"). To geographers, though, the word represents the ratio between the linear size of a feature as represented on a map (or even a computer screen) and its linear size in the real world (provided the feature is a delineable object). We find that it is convenient to avoid this confusion by using the word resolution, which for gridded data refers to the size of a unit of the grid, usually a pixel (picture-element) in satellite data.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey