The height of Mount Everest is affected by it! The latest data shows →

On July 8, the reporter learned from the Second Qinghai-Tibet Scientific Expedition that the Second Qinghai-Tibet Scientific Expedition used radar profile measurement methods to measure the latest snow thickness on the top of Mount Everest to be 9.5±1.2 meters. This result was published as a highlight article in the international cryosphere journal "The Cryosphere" on July 7, providing valuable reference data for studying the dynamic changes of the cryosphere at extremely high altitudes and the lithosphere on the top of Mount Everest. This is also the latest data on the thickness of snow on the top of Mount Everest, the top of the earth.

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Mount Everest is the top of the earth, and the thickness of the snow on its top directly affects its "naked height". With global climate change, the thickness of the snow on the top of Mount Everest and its changes have important scientific value for understanding the response of the cryosphere to climate change, and have always attracted the attention of the scientific community and the public. In the past 50 years, there have been many reports on the thickness of the snow on the top of Mount Everest, but due to problems such as measurement means and methods, the reported data are subject to great uncertainty and controversy.

In 1975, the Chinese mountaineering team inserted wooden poles into the snow layer and estimated the thickness to be about 0.92 meters. In 1992, the China-Italy joint mountaineering team used iron rods to measure the snow depth to be 2.55 meters. In 2005, the Chinese mountaineering survey used radar measurements to estimate the snow thickness to be about 3.5 meters. In 2019, the Nepalese mountaineering team and my country's Mount Everest height measurement in 2020 both used radar to measure the snow thickness on the top of Mount Everest, but no relevant measurement results were reported.

From April to May 2022, the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition team carried out the "Peak Mission-Comprehensive Scientific Investigation and Research on the Extremely High Altitude Areas of Mount Everest". One of the important scientific expedition tasks was to carry out measurements of the thickness and structure of snow on the top of Mount Everest. Using a 1000MHz integrated ice and snow thickness radar, the expedition team began measuring along the exposed bedrock at the top of Mount Everest and gradually measured to the top of Mount Everest. Compared with the previous top single-point radar measurement method, this profile measurement method can ensure that the snow-bedrock radar reflection interface presents a gradual trend, which is easy for the correct interpretation of later data. The radar measurement results show that the thickness of snow on the top of Mount Everest far exceeds the results reported in the past. The thickness of snow on the top of Mount Everest in May 2022 was 9.5±1.2 meters.

Researcher Yang Wei from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the direct person in charge of the radar thickness measurement project at the top of Mount Everest. He said: "The propagation speed of radar waves in different media is different. The propagation speed in snow is usually between 0.20-0.27nm/s. In 2005, the Chinese mountaineering expedition team measured the radar propagation speed in snow at 7028 meters to be 0.23nm/s. We also used this propagation speed in our measurement this time and estimated that the average thickness of the top of Mount Everest is 9.5 meters. However, considering that the nature of the snow at the top of Mount Everest may be different from that at 7028 meters, we gave an error range for the radar wave transmission speed (±0.03 nm/s), which gives a possible error of ±1.2 meters."

Source: CCTV News Client