Khim Lal Gautam’s real job had only just begun when he reached the summit of Mount Everest in the early hours of May 22, 2019. An egg-shaped landing barely large enough to host ten people, the summit was still dark, deserted and, as always, freezing cold. Gautam and his four colleagues—each of whom were on oxygen support—spent the next two hours at the earth’s highest point working with GPS and GNSS devices to gather data about the peak altitude, data that would be crucial in the joint Nepal-China attempt to revise the height of Mount Everest.
More than two-and-a-half years later, on December 10, 2021, Nepal and China announced Everest’s updated height as 8848.86 meters, approximately 86 centimeters taller than the previously recognized height of the world’s tallest peak that straddles both countries.
The new figure was based on independent surveys carried out by officials like Gautam from Nepal as well as China in an unprecedented partnership between the two neighbouring countries.
“This has finally put an end to the dispute over the formal height of Everest,” says Gautam.
Before this, Nepal recognized 8848 meters as an official elevation of Everest as per the findings of a survey conducted by India in the early 1950s. But Nepal felt the need for its own measurement because more recent surveys were suggesting different figures.
As a key member of the Nepali team, Gautam had spent over a year with his colleagues from the Survey Department of the Government of Nepal to measure the peak of Everest through trigonometric measurement. But it was the one-and-a-half months at Everest, especially the two hours spent atop the summit, that he recalls as the most difficult phase of not just his career but also his entire life.
“I lost my toes and some in our team nearly died because our work required us to stay there much longer than climbers ordinarily do,” Gauram recounts. “But it makes me proud to think that our sacrifices did not go in vain.”
Gautam’s team had carried roughly 90 pounds of equipment, including a scanner, a control monitor, antennae, a tripod, and a large amount of batteries to the peak. At the summit, the team used GPS devices to gather information regarding the position and altitude of the peak.
Prior to making their way to the summit to ascertain the precise position and altitude of the peak, the team had formed various stations at lower points on the mountain, then separately used the Ground Penetrating Radar measurement model to find out the rock height of Everest.
Experts have pointed out three reasons behind the increase in the height of Everest: firstly, the use of more sophisticated instruments and measurement techniques—which included the GNSS, the Ground Penetrating Radar measurement model, and the traditional trigonometric model—has resulted in greater precision; secondly, a gradual tectonic shift of the Indian plate which has squeezed further into the Euroasian plate following the 2015 earthquake could have altered the height of Everest; and thirdly, the depleting snow cover could have been another contributing factor, according to studies. A recent study suggests that dust from some of the world’s largest deserts has contributed to the rapid melting of the Himalayan snow caps.
The announcement of Everest’s new height is significant given that it settles numerous long-running controversies surrounding its height. Apart from the previously established height of 8848 meters based on measurements made by the Indian government in the early 1950s, several other countries, including China, the US, and Italy, have come up with different measurements, further fueling controversies about its accuracy. Nepal, meanwhile, could do little to address these disputes as it had never taken part in the measurement process.
In the beginning, Nepal was planning to measure Everest on its own, but the plan changed when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal in ____ and the two countries signed an accord to jointly announce the height based on their research. The joint announcement from two concerned countries has not only formally ended the dispute, but also increased Nepal’s capacity to carry out measurements of other peaks.
“We have proven that we have manpower and expertise to carry out such endeavours in the future,” says Janak Raj Joshi, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation.
Despite the historic success in announcing the new height of the world’s tallest peak, Nepal and China could not agree on its rock height. According to two Nepali officials with knowledge on the matter, the two countries had to drop their collaborative work on rock height due to mismatch in data gathered by surveyors of the two countries.
“There was a significant difference in data regarding the rock height. It was the reason we decided to announce just the updated snow height for now,” said an official.
