Mount Everest 'shrinks' by 12ft

[Amelia]

Mount Everest 'shrinks' by 12ft

BENJAMIN ROBERTSON

IN BEIJING

Mon 10 Oct 2005

MOUNT Everest is about 12ft lower than previously thought, according to the results of a Chinese survey of the world's highest peak.

It revealed the summit is now only 29,017.16ft above sea level - 12.14ft below a 1975 Chinese survey and 21.65ft lower than a 1999 American study.

Using a combination of radar and global positioning system (GPS) equipment, Chinese mountaineers scaled the peak in May this year and measured the height against six control points near the mountain's base for reference.

The revised measurement does not threaten Everest's revered position as the world's highest peak - the second highest, K2, is 28,251ft above sea level - but it may surprise some observers, while perhaps confirming suspicions that the mountain has been shrinking due to the effects of global warming.

Speaking when the study was proposed earlier this year, Dr Hugh Sinclair, an expert on the processes of mountain formation and erosion at Edinburgh University's school of geosciences, said he was "extremely doubtful" that the mountain would have shrunk.

He said: "The Himalayas are uplifting at a rate of about 1cm a year due to the collision of the Indian continental plate with the Asian plate. Basically, we have India pushing into Asia at a rate of about 25mm a year, and this causes the high Himalayas to rise up in response to that pressure at about 10mm a year, so the overall tendency should be for the mountain range to grow."

At a news conference in Beijing yesterday, Chen Bangzhu, the director general of China's state bureau of surveying and mapping, was non-committal in accounting for the discrepancy, saying "we cannot arrive at the conclusion now that Everest has become shorter, because there have been problems ... of surveying technology with previous measurements".

But he insisted that the study was "so far the most detailed and precise among all previous surveys domestically and internationally".

Over the past year, scientists have raised the spectre of a Himalayan mountain range without ice, saying that its glaciers are melting at alarming speeds.

A World Wildlife Fund report in March said a quarter of the world's glaciers could disappear by 2050 and that nearly 67 per cent of Himalayan glaciers were already receding, spelling long-term disaster for Asian countries which depend on the meltwater to feed their major rivers.

The Chinese are anxious to reclaim the mountain as part of their heritage, sponsoring expeditions to climb it from the more challenging Tibetan side and questioning why an Asian mountain should be known by a western name.

It was named after Sir George Everest, the British surveyor general of India who mapped much of the subcontinent between 1830 and 1843. In Tibet, however, it goes by the name Qomolangma, meaning "goddess", the name now most commonly used in Chinese newspaper articles.

[Paul Beach]

Margaret Gray responds:

That is very disappointing news.

[Stan]

NAOMI

Where you responsible for the shrinkage of that mountain? We told you not to do things like that, that is not what cleaning products are for....

[Norman Byers, N.D.]

Ya they say that, but I just read an article that says it was found to be 6' higher in 1999. It also said it was formed about 60 million years ago. I wonder how high it was back then, in the good old days?

Norman

[Naomi]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Stan Jensen said:

NAOMI

Where you responsible for the shrinkage of that mountain? We told you not to do things like that, that is not what cleaning products are for....

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/oops.gif" alt="" /> Busted!! I confess, guess I shouldn't have tested the new formulation on Mt Everest. Didn't think anyone would notice <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Amelia]

All Everest said was "a little off the top, please"

[Naomi]

ROFLOL Am I ever releived, guess it wasn't my new formula after all. Everest must have had the same hairdresser I seem to find!

<img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/smilie_zoom.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/mittelgr124.gif" alt="" />

[Neil D]

Quote:

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while perhaps confirming suspicions that the mountain has been shrinking due to the effects of global warming.

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Hmmmmm....Too much rain and thus causing shrinkage???