On the occasions of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Tibet Autonomous Region, the 30th anniversary of the first woman's successful conquering of Mt. Qomolangma as well as the 30th anniversary of China's precise surveying of the height of Mt. Qomolangma, State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and the People's Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region will jointly organize a scientific expedition team to conduct a large-scale comprehensive scientific expedition on the Qomolangma region in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from March to June this year with a purpose of re-surveying Mt. Qomolangma for a precise measuring of the actual height of the mountain.

This is also the first large-scale scientific study on Mt. Qomolangma in the past 30 years since the country launched three explorations for scientific purposes in the region in 1959, 1966 and 1975 respectively.

As learned, the current scientific expedition will answer some scientific questions on Mt. Qomolangma brought forward in recent years through the analyses on the materials such as the atmospheric physics and chemistry composition, glacier changes, biological diversity as well as the ecological environmental variation in the region.

"Chinese mountaineering team surveyed the height of Mt. Qomolangma, the world summit, at 8848.13 meters in 1975," said Chen Junyong, the deputy chief of calculation group in those days, the former chief engineer of State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping and academician with CAS. At that time, Chinese mountaineering team erected the survey targets at the summit and successfully measured the height of Mt. Qomolangma with triangulation method.

State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping will adopt the latest contemporary method of surveying and mapping to re-measure the height of Mt. Qomolangma during the scientific expedition this time. The professional surveying and mapping personnel will cooperate with Tibetan mountaineering group this time and carry the advanced measuring apparatus to the summit of Mt. Qomolangma. Meanwhile, the two groups will also use the sound wave surveying technology to find out the highest point on the summit, precisely measure the depth of snow covering the summit, re-erect the surveying targets and observing prism at the summit as well as install GPS observing facilities so as to precisely measure the height of Mt. Qomolangma. This is another time for China to measure the elevation level of Mt. Qomolangma, and China has promised to announce the result to the world.

Disputes on the height of Mt. Qomolangma

Many countries have as always been attaching great attention on the measuring of Mt. Qomolangma over a long time. Especially after 1975, the frequency of measuring has been accelerated and the debate over the height of Mt. Qomolangma has never stopped.

Italian scientist Giorgio Poretti led a team to climb Mt. Qomolangma in 1992. They erected the survey targets and measured the actual depth of snow cover was 2.55 meters, which was 1.63 meters thicker than that measured in 1975. Under that condition, the height of Mt. Qomolangma was 8,846.5 meters.

In May 1999, being a cooperation partner, Zhang Jiangqi and other Chinese scientists collaborated with and offer their help to their US counterparts at the foot of north slope for the implementation of US's project of ��Millennium Mt. Qomolangma Measuring��. In November that year, the chief organizer and executive of the project announced that the height of Mountain Qomolangma was 8,850 meters at the annual meeting of the US's National Geographic Society.

Yao Shandong, director of Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under CAS, said at an international academic symposium in August 2004 that the entire height of Mt. Qomolangma is decreasing due to the phenomenon of global warming though the earth crust movement has heightened the mountain at a slow pace. According to the observation by Chen Junyong and other academicians with CAS, from 1966 to 1999, the summit of Mt Qomolangma has decreased for a total of 1.3 meters and now the lowering is still continuing.

By People's Daily Online