Mt Everest is now home of world's highest weather station

 

A multidisciplinary team of National Geography society's climate scientists and world-renowned climbers have installed the "World’s Highest Weather Station" on Mt. Everest at an altitude of 8,830 metres to automatically measure various meteorological phenomena, the Nepalese media report.

The automatic weather monitoring station powered by solar panels below the summit point is expected to measure the air temperature, wind speed and direction, air pressure, change in surface height of snow, incoming shortwave and long wave radiation, and out-going shortwave and long wave radiations.

In 2020, the world’s highest weather station went dark. Now a new, improved version has been deployed atop the roof of the world. On a postcard day in 2021. The NatGeo team, led by climate scientist Baker Perry from the Appalachian State University in the US, consisted of acclaimed climbers and scientists, many of whom scaled the world’s highest peak while installing the weather station.

Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) said the automatic weather station was installed a few metres below the summit point (8,848.86 metres) last week as the snow and ice on the summit are not suitable for fixing equipment.

"The reason for installing a weather station at 8,800 metres instead of 8,848.86 metres is that the snow and ice on the summit are not suitable for fixing equipment. For this reason, the weather station was built on a bedrock around 8,800 metres," the Global Times quoted Zhao Huabiao, a researcher at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, as saying.

The team spent a month in the Everest region of Nepal and also carried out the maintenance of other stations, including a station at South Col, The Himalayan Times reported.

Expedition team celebrates setting up the world’s highest operating automated weather station.

The DHM and National Geographic signed a memorandum of understanding to operate all five Automatic Weather Stations installed by NatGeo to provide near real-time information regarding mountain conditions.

As per the MoU, the NatGeo team will fully operate the stations till 2025 and will hand over the technology to Nepal in 2026.

According to Chinese media reports, Beijing has eight stations set up from 5,200 metres to 8,800 metres on Mt Everest, with four stations exceeding 7,000 metres at 7,028 metres, 7,790 metres, 8,300 metres, and 8,800 metres.

DHM’s Director General Kamal Ram Joshi said the DHM had requested the NatGeo team to transmit data directly to Nepal authorities without channeling it via the NatGeo servers, as it has been up until now. A Chinese expedition had also installed an automatic meteorological monitoring system on the northern side of Everest at an altitude of 8,800 metres, the report said.