Summary

Pinnacle points are points from which no higher elevation can be seen. Two points have line of sight if light can travel from one to the other unobstructed with sufficent contrast for visibilty under clear atmospheric conditions. Many physical phenomenon are modelled including Earth's curvature, local topograpghy, atmospheric refraction, atmospheric scattering, and partial irradiation. It is possible for two pinnacle points with equal elevation to have line of sight since neither would be high enough to disqualify the other. This map shows all 1554 pinnacle points on Earth with at least 300 m of prominence or 100 km or isolation.

Links

• Method
• Github
• CSV of all pinnacle points

Data Sources

1. On-Top-Of-The-World Mountains

On-top-of-the-world (OTOTW) mountains are mountains where no land rises above its horizontal plane. Since any land that rises above the horizontal plane would have a higher elevation than the mountain itself, if a mountain is not an OTOTW mountain then it can not be a pinnacle point either. In other words, pinnacle points are a subset of OTOTW mountains. Kai Xu found all 6,464 OTOTW mountains on Earth with over 300 m of prominence.

2. Mountains by Prominence

Andrew Kirmse and Jonathan de Ferranti found all 11,866,713 summits on Earth with over 100 ft (~30 m) of prominence. Prominence is the minimum vertical distance one must descend to reach a higher point. OTOTW mountains were idenitifed using this dataset, so this dataset is used to help determine which OTOTW mountains qualify as pinnacle points.

3. Mountains by Isolation

Andrew Kirmse and Jonathan de Ferranti found all 24,749,518 summits on Earth with over 1 km of isolation. Isolation is the distance to the nearest higher point. Extreme isolation points are strong pinnacle point candidates, so this dataset is used to find all pinnacle points with an isolation of at least 100 km.

4. Open-Meteo's Elevation API

Open-Meteo offers an elevation API that can be used to find the elevation of any point on Earth. This API is used to find the elevation of points between summits that could obstruct line of sight.

5. Beyond Horizons

Beyond Horizons has catalogued many of the longest lines of sight to ever be captured by photograph. These confirmed lines of sight are used to calibrate the way light bending is modelled from atmospheric refraction.