Team sets off to remeasure Everest
A TEAM of more than 30 Chinese surveyors yesterday left a base camp at Mount Qomolangma, or Mount Everest, for a higher spot on their journey to the peak, as they endeavor to accomplish a mission to remeasure the height of the world’s highest mountain.
The team, comprising climbers and surveyors from the Ministry of Natural Resources, will seize the current weather window and try for the summit at the optimal time.
They will conduct surveys at the summit using devices, including the Global Navigation Satellite System and gravimeter, Wang Yongfeng, vice director of the mountaineering administrative center of the General Administration of Sport, said.
The surveyors arrived at the base camp at an altitude of 5,200 meters, located in Tingri County of Tibet Autonomous
Region in southwest China, in early April for training on mountain climbing and surveying skills in the high-altitude region, he revealed.
“We are very excited and also very confident about the mission. We will do our utmost to ensure its success,” said Wang Wei, one of the surveyors.
The core of the mission is to accurately measure the height of Qomolangma, which can be used for research in fields such as geodynamics. Accurate data on snow depth, meteorology and wind speed at the summit will provide first-hand material for studies related to glacier monitoring and ecological environment protection.
Located on the China-Nepal border, Qomolangma is the world’s highest peak, with its north part located in Tibet’s Xigaze prefecture.
Since the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinese surveyors have conducted six rounds of scaled measurement and scientific research on Qomolangma and released the height of the peak twice in 1975 and 2005, which was 8,848.13 meters and 8,844.43 meters, respectively.
In 1975, when the Chinese mountaineering team scaled the mountain, no professional surveyors reached the top. But the mountaineers took a survey marker to the summit, which helped surveyors from nine observation stations near the mountain to calculate that it stood 8,848.13 meters tall.
“The survey marker must be taken to the summit by man,” said Zhang Qingtao, vice captain of a surveying team of the MNR, adding that it serves as a target for observers at the foot of the mountain to aim more accurately at the very pinnacle of the summit.
Today, with the development of surveying technology and methodology, professional surveyors can better perform the complicated work at the summit, said Li Guopeng, captain of the surveying team. “Professional surveyors are more adept at using the advanced devices. Therefore, the data they obtain are more reliable, scientific and convincing.”
He added that surveyors can also help limit the amount of time spent at the summit, which will reduce mountaineers’ exposure to the low-temperature environment.
Due to the unstable airflow as well as the windy and lowtemperature conditions, survey drones cannot work at the summit of Qomolangma at present, Li noted, adding that “this may be a trend in the future.”
(Xinhua)