Chinese surveyors make it to Qomolangma summit
Print Edition
A Chinese survey team reached the summit of Mount Qomolangma yesterday, and remeasured the height of the world’s highest peak also known as Mount Everest.
The event marked a crucial step in China’s mission to survey the mountain, which scientists believe will enhance human knowledge of nature and help boost scientific development.
After summiting at 11am, the eight-member team erected a survey marker and installed a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) antenna on the snow-covered peak, which measures less than 20 square meters, while other surveyors conducted observations from six points beneath the peak.
Mount Qomolangma straddles the China-Nepal border, with its northern part located in Xigaze of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.
“The changes of Mount Qomolangma are of key significance to the global studies of geology and ecology, and have a major impact on people’s lives,” said Chen Gang, an engineer with the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The team members remained at the summit for two and a half hours, a new record for Chinese climbers.
While at the summit, the team members also measured the depth of the snow and conducted GNSS, gravity and meteorological surveys. The GNSS survey was assisted by China’s home-grown BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.
The results of the measurement will be released after surveyors analyze, compare and check all the data they have acquired which will take two to three months.
Before descending, the team members unfurled a national flag on the summit. At about 1:30pm, team leader Tsenor reported to command at the base camp: “Command, we have completed the surveying mission and are ready to descend.”
A 53-member team from the Natural Resources ministry has been conducting scientific work on the mountain since early March. On May 6, the Chinese survey team set out for the peak to determine its height, but plans to reach the summit were delayed twice by bad weather.
Climbers only have a short window of opportunity to make the risky ascent during the main spring climbing season before the approaching summer monsoon brings dangerous climatic conditions.
Mount Qomolangma is located in the collision and compression zone between the edges of the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate, where crustal movement is very active. There has been discussion over whether recent seismic events, particularly a powerful 2015 earthquake in Nepal, had affected the mountain’s height.
“Accurately measuring the height of Mount Qomolangma is helpful to the study of the elevation changes of the Himalayas and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” said Gao Dengyi, an atmospheric physicist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The ascent comes after both China and Nepal canceled the spring climbing season in a bid to prevent the new coronavirus from spreading among climbers.
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