Measuring the Height of Trees with a Clinometer/Laser Rangefinder: Sine works better than Tangent

When I first got interested in measuring the heights of trees, after reading a wonderful book called The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston, I thought that finding the tangent was the best way to calculate the height of a tree. After all, I didn’t have a way to measure the hypotenuse — the distance from me to the top of the crown. However, a laser rangefinder let’s you calculate that distance, which in turn makes it much easier to get an accurate reading for the height of a tree. Thanks to the Eastern Native Tree Society (ENTS) for posting a helpful article about this.

Here’s a link to the article.

And a file download: