Posted on 01/26/2005 8:23:02 AM PST by presidio9
It got bigger only recently, but now it may be shrinking. What on earth is happening to Mount Everest?
News reports from China yesterday said there was official concern that the top of the world's tallest mountain is getting lower and melting glaciers caused by global warming may be to blame.
A scientific team is to be sent to the mountain known in Chinese as Mount Qomolangma, or Goddess Mother of the World to remeasure its height, according to the state-run newspaper China Daily .
But Everest was last measured in 1999, and found to be higher than previously thought. A team of scientists supported by National Geographic Magazine and Boston's Museum of Science was able for the first time to operate Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite equipment from the summit, and thus take the most precise and authoritative measurements ever. They came up with a revised elevation of 29,035ft, seven feet higher than the previously accepted figure. That had been set in 1954 by the Survey of India after picking the mean of 12 altitudes determined from 12 different survey stations around the mountain.
Now, however, the Chinese think the summit may have got lower and, according to China Daily , the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, working with the Chinese national women's mountaineering expedition, will use radar and GPS equipment to remeasure the peak.
The newspaper said a recent survey found the summit of Everest had dropped by more than four feet, because ofmelting glaciers resulting from global warming.
Nepalese Sherpas who often climb the peak have reported seeing widespread evidence of snowlines receding. And in 2002, a team of climbers sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme found signs that the landscape of Mount Everest had changed significantly since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first conquered the peak in 1953.
The team found that the glacier that once came close to Hillary and Norgay's first camp had retreated three miles, and a series of ponds near Island Peak so-called because it was then an island in a sea of ice had merged into a long lake.
Roger Payne, the sports and development director at the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA), and one of the expedition's leaders, said it was clear that global warming was emerging as one of the biggest threats to mountain areas. "The evidence of climate change was all around us, from huge scars gouged in the landscapes by sudden, glacial floods to the lakes swollen by melting glaciers," he said.
He added that the observations of local people who lived on the lower slopes of the mountain were even more telling. The president of the Nepal Mountain Association told the expedition that he had seen significant changes over the past 20 years in the ice fields, and that these changes appeared to be accelerating.
The expedition found that climatic changes had caused problems for residents of the area. A massive flood caused by water melted from the glaciers had wiped out old wooden bridges, which had to be replaced with higher, stronger metal ones to reduce the possibility of damage from future floods.
Everest sits on the borders of Tibet (occupied by China) and Nepal. Its name in English comes from Sir George Everest, the Surveyor-General of India, who was the first to produce detailed maps of the subcontintent including the Himalayas, and first calculated the great peak's height in 1852.
Since Hillary and Norgay first made it to the top, more than 1,300 people have climbed Everest, from either the Nepalese or the Tibetan side. At least 175 climbers have died in the attempt.
I can't really say that that is Lhotse...but look at the picture I posted at 48.
Now imagine walking all the way to the right until you are standing at the "foot" of Lhotse looking up.
No way would you see anything but Lhotse.
Anyway...that's my guess of what the pix at the top of the thread is.
lol,, ROTFLMAO
Apparently there are many other glaciers that are observed to be expanding...Only a small amount have been even measured.
It's further away than the mountains in front and the picture is from a MUCH lower elevation. (That's the view looking North from Nepal)
Now look at the pix I posted viewing Everest from the North...you can't even see the "bigger" mountains. They are right behind it with the "Western Cwm" (valley) between.
That's ok; the snow is UP 4' here in ARIZONA! Something about Newton's Law of Conservation of Matter might be at work here...
Now only 29,031 feet tall...
,,, I'll trim our bank notes accordingly.
;-) Check this thaw.
But, you know, I don't really think it's the 'global warming' thing this time though...you know, like does rock really 'melt'???!!!
*I* think it HAS to be due to just too many people going up there.
You know, I had a really bad feeling about this, as soon as I heard the Tibetans had started taking those tour buses up.
We're gonna HAVE to take that mountain away from those Tibetans for their own GOOD!!! ...and so as to 'preserve' our heritage!!! I mean like, how many of our forefathers went there to climb??? It would be like a TOTAL SHAME if we don't DO something!!! I mean, what we need here are some more ROAD CLOSURES!!! ...and QUICK!!!
...and, you know, the UN should, like, charge anyone wanting to go there a fee like, you know, something fair, like $100,000 or so, and then give them a seminar on alpine preservation before they go up. (Oh sure! There would DEFINITELY be a free lunch with that, so the visitors would KNOW they were getting 'value'.) ...and there could be a 'thing' like, people who couldn't 'afford' to pay that much could get in like, you know, free. And, like, if there was any money left after paying for the classroom, the instructor, the UN's 'administrative fee', and... you know...the free lunch... the rest could go to some great charity like, you know, 'Greenpeace' or 'Sierra Klub' or someone, who really KARES about the Earth!!!
Don't you think that would be like, a GREAT idea???
Not necessarily. Think "Ice Age"
Hmmmmm....so why is there more forest now than when the Pilgrims landed...hmmmm?
BTTT!!!!!!
Your pic, eddie, is most definitely Lhotse ridge with Everest behind. In fact the photo was taken with telephoto from somewhere in the vicinity of Pangboche, the last spot where you's get that vantage point (as you approach Dingboche/Pheriche, Everest "drops" behind Lhotse).
But I agree with meema, no matter what I do with post #1 photo, it doesn't look like any Everest pic I've ever seen. Nothing seems to be in the right place.
Global warming melts rock, donchaknow.
I demand a lot more proof than this before I accept that hypothesis.
So from which spot would pic #1 have been taken?
It couldn't be anywhere from the south or east
(e.g. Kala Pattar), I know those views like the back of my hand.
It couldn't be anywhere from the south or east west....
"seven feet higher"
I've used the professional grade backpack GPS models that download to a data logger. The gear is in a back pack and the GPS antenna sticks up above the pack (and my head) about one foot. I'm six feet tall. I wonder......
Thanks for the new pic...Now I'm sooooo confuuuseddd.!
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