Translated from Beijing Science and Technology

Over the past thirty years, Prof. Chen Junyong of Chinese Academy of Sciences have conducted five times of measurements on the height of Mount Everest, using such advanced means as astronomical methods, gravity reference, laser to measure distance and GPS. Their results conclude that Mount Everest is dwarfing, shown by the fact that it has fallen 1.3m in 1999 compared to that in 1966.

What leads to its dwarfing?

Many turn to the activity of continental plates for an answer, while Prof. Chen disagrees. In his opinion, activity of Indian plate and Eurasian Plate actually lead to unstable growing of Mount Everest. He owes the 1.3m loss in its height to the change of ice cap on Mount Everest.

Prof Yao Tandong, director of ITP joins him in arguing that it must not have been the crustal movement that caused the falling of Mount Everest. He further explained that global warming has sped up the process of accumulated snow on top to turn to ice, and the shortened thickening of glaciers led to the falling of the ice surface. His answer to this issue is confirmed by the correspondence of the dramatic falling of Mount Everest with intense increase in global climate.

To help us better understand Prof Yao’s interpretation, Prof Kang Shichang, a researcher in ITP categorizes the process of thickening into two types and concludes that the second type, which contributes the freezing of lower snow layers to increasing pressure brought forth by thickening snow. But there is still more to say about the thickening of glaciers before we affirm it to be the only reason for the dwarfing.

Statistics haven’t presented a close relation between the annual decrease from Mount Everest and increase in global temperature, esp. shown in the periods of 1966-1975 and 1975-1992. But to arrive at a more accurate conclusion, scientists must get the concrete record telling the annual change of both thickness of and temperature of icy layers on Mount Everest.

We are on the right track now to connect the dwarfing of Mount Everest with global warming. Said Prof Kang, and our next task is to look into such issues as: what is the actual depth of ice and snow at the top of Mount Everest? What causes material loss on the glaciers? Etc.