Mount Everest is now taller by nearly a metre
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The world’s highest mountain is Mount Everest. It is part of the Himalayan range and stands on the border between China and Nepal. Mountaineers climb it from both sides.
As per a new joint statement from China and Nepal, its new height is 8,848.86 m (29,032 feet). This is 0.86 metres higher than it was previously known.
Till now, Nepal had been using the height of 8,848 metres for Mt Everest. This height was determined by the Survey of India in 1954 and Nepal had not done any measurement of its own.
For more than 10 years, China and Nepal had been having a disagreement over Everest’s height. China did not add the snow cap on top while measuring it, while Nepal did. This meant that previously, China’s measurement was shorter than Nepal’s.
The mountain also needed to be re-measured due to a major earthquake in Nepal in 2015. This made other Himalayan peaks shorter by about a metre and scientists thought the same may have happened to Everest.
How was Mount Everest re-measured?
In order to fix the issue with China, Nepal sent a team to Mt Everest to conduct a fresh measurement last year. China also did the same this year in May.
The heights of mountains are measured starting with its base, which is the sea. Nepal used the Bay of Bengal as its sea-level base while China used the Yellow Sea in Shandong, China as their sea-level base.
Nepal also used GPS for the measurement while China used its own BeiDou navigation satellite system (similar to GPS).
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