New Height for Mount Everest

• 09 Dec 2020

Why in News

Nepal and China have announced the revised height of Mount Everest as 8,848.86 metres. The new height is 86 cm more than the previous measurement.

Key Points

• The new height of 8,848.86 meters replaced the long-associated 8,848 metre-height, which was, as per a measurement carried out by the Survey of India in 1954.
• The common declaration meant that the two countries have shed their long-standing difference in opinion about the mountain’s height — 8,844 m claimed by China and 8,847 m by Nepal.
  
  • Resolving the three-metre difference, attributed to China calculating the “rock height” underneath the snow and Nepal using the “snow height” which included the snowcap, was the aim of a joint project.
• Everest is also known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Mount Qomolangma in China.
• The mountain lies on the border between Nepal and Tibet and the summit can be accessed from both sides.
• Related Information:
  
  • It gets its English name from Sir George Everest, a colonial-era geographer who served as the Surveyor General of India in the mid-19^th century.
  • It was first scaled in 1953 by the Indian-Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary.
  • First Survey of Everest:
    
    • The first effort was carried out in 1847 by a team led by Andrew Waugh, Surveyor General of India.
      
      • The survey was based on trigonometric calculations and is known as the Great Trigonometric Survey of India.
    • The team discovered that ‘Peak 15’ (as Mount Everest was referred to then) was the highest mountain, contrary to the then-prevailing belief that Mount Kanchenjunga (8,582 m and the 3^rd highest peak in the world now) was the highest peak in the world.
      
      • Mount K2, at 8,611 metres above sea level, is the second highest mountain in the world.

Source:TH