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China and Nepal have jointly announced that Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is 86 centimeters higher than previously estimated. This means that the new officially established altitude is 8848.86 meters. Until now, positions have been different on whether to include snow on top of a mountain at altitude.
Chinese and Nepalese scientists re-measured the height of Mount Everest, because various measurements in the past yielded different results.
According to previous Chinese official estimates, the mountain’s height was 8,844.43 meters, four meters lower than the Indian estimate, the BBC writes.
The site is on the border of China and Nepal, but Nepal has conducted its own study of the height of the mountain for the first time. A common intention to re-measure was born in Kathmandu last year when the Chinese president visited the capital of Nepal.
The official world altitude of 8,848 meters, hitherto widespread throughout the world, was determined in 1954 by a measurement made by an Indian government agency. Four Nepalese surveyors prepared for the mission over two years.
According to the new measurement, the height of the mountain is slightly higher (86 centimeters) than expected,therefore, the new official height of the mountain is 8848.86 meters.
Researchers from both countries climbed to the top, and the Nepalese climbed in 2019 when amateur climbers caused traffic jams in the so-called death zone. The Chinese rose this year, the year of the pandemic, media reports said theirs was the only team up there this year.
The 2015 earthquake
Some geologists suggest that the massive earthquake in 2015 may have affected the height of Mount Everest. The then 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people in Nepal and buried parts of the base camp under an avalanche, killing at least 18 climbers.
Experts say the earthquake could have flattened the mountain’s snow cover. Scientists say that other peaks in the Himalayas, mainly areas north of Kathmandu and near the epicemtrum, may have dropped a meter.
Others, however, say that Mount Everest (Csomolungma), like other mountain peaks in the Himalayas, may have grown over time due to the movement of tectonic plates.
How was the mountain re-measured?
Nepal used the Bay of Bengal as the sea level from which a 250-kilometer field of view was built to the point from which the Knotolungma can already be seen, thus creating a chain of points that can be measured or summed. The sea level of the Chinese researchers was the Yellow Sea.
For the first time in May, Chinese researchers made high-precision aerial gravity measurements to determine the altitude of Everest. The measurement provided data on the geoid surface of the world’s highest mountain peak and the surrounding region to centimeter accuracy. Remote sensing aerial measurements of the region were also carried out, providing three-dimensional results with decimeter precision for the topography of the region.A group of 53 Chinese surveyors, geologists and ecologists have been conducting scientific research on the mountain since the beginning of March. The survey group also included experts from the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources and members of the national climbing team. His expedition reached Everest on May 27.
Everest since the beginning of the People’s Republic of China, the height of Everest has been measured and scientific research conducted in parallel, and the altitude data has been published twice: 8848.13 meters in 1975 and 8844.43 meters in 2005. In addition, in 2005 a 3.5 meter snow cover was measured at the top of the mountain, as well as an unknown 1 meter thick material between rock and snow, probably a mixture of snow and gravel.
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