The dispute over Mount Everest has never stopped solving the mystery of Mount Everest

The letter said that the four young men of the "Italian Mount Everest 2004" team had already reached the third pole of the world on May 24. “This Italian climbing team is different from usual this year — their goal is not to simply climb the summit, but to place the most advanced snow thickness detector and GPS receiver in a desperate situation. The first-hand data to re-evaluate the thickness of the ice layer on the peak of the Everest peak is ultimately to obtain an accuracy that exceeds the previous elevation of Everest's elevation.” Zhang Jiangqi told reporters.

Seeing the letter from George Prady, Zhang Jiangqi immediately called the former chief engineer of the National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping and Academician Chen Junyong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Academician Chen presided over the “35-year study of the elevation measurement of the Mount Everest and the crustal movement in the adjacent area.” In 1975, the Chinese government conducted a large-scale survey of the Everest campaign, and he was the deputy head of the calculation team. “After hearing George Priedi's measurement of the snow layer thickness of Mount Everest, my memory was immediately recalled 29 years ago,” said Academician Chen with silver hair smiling at me across a long desk.

In 1975, the Chinese mountaineering team erected a measurement standard at the top of Mount Everest, and measured the elevation of Mount Everest using the triangulation method. At that time, the “snow surface height” (that is, the thickness of the snow layer including the peak) was 8849.05 meters. “At that time, I wanted to reduce the thickness of snow-covered snow, not exactly the height of the Mount Everest rock mountain? So I let Pando, a female mountaineer, insert a wood pole with a diameter of 4 to 5 centimeters into the snow layer until he could insert it. The measured depth was 92 cm, so there was a value of 8845.13 meters for the Mount Everest elevation." Chen Jiashi, who is in his 70s this year, could not help but said: “Now it looks really ridiculous! Because in fact the relatively loose snow layer should be below the frozen layer, and Pando probably would not have been inserted into the rock layer.”

In 1992, the Italian scientists and mountaineers led by George Prady came to China. The Italian mountaineer once again set up a landmark on the peak. After measuring the height of the snow, the Italian brave man thrust a steel drill with only a thick thumb into the snow layer until it could be inserted, measuring a thickness of 2.55 meters. From the 1979 and 1992 measurements of the peak depth of Everest peak, the difference is 1.63 meters. Academician Chen told me that the development of alpine measurement technology to the present day, the key to measuring Everest has been focused on the thickness of the top ice and snow layer, only to overcome this difficulty can be a qualitative leap.

For a long time, many countries in the world are paying attention to the measurement of Mount Qomolangma. From the middle of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century 150 years, major measurement events occurred almost every 20 years or so. Especially after 1975, this frequency was greatly accelerated. And China has never conducted official measurements of the same size and independence since 1975.

In May 1999, the United States "Millennium Everest Survey" program was successfully implemented. Zhang Jiangqi and other Chinese scholars as partners assisted at the foot of the North Slope and provided some reference data. On November 11, six months later, the plan's mastermind and organizer, the honorary curator of the Boston Natural Museum of America, and 89-year-old Brand Fort Worth announced at the annual meeting of the National Geographic Society. The measurement result is 8850 meters. This result was accepted by the National Geographic Society at the time. The reason was: "It comes from the most credible and completely measured at the top of the world." Brandford Warstburn emphasized to Reuters. He was awarded the "enthusiastic approval" by China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. However, the National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has regarded this value as a "scientific research achievement." That is, the Chinese government has not formally recognized "8850 meters."

"Thirty years ago, I hope that China's aphasia in the international Everest surveying business will end here. If the Chinese want to have their own right to speak, they have to go to the Peak again." A few days ago, the reporter learned from relevant departments that the country has To allocate special funds, plans to organize experts from the China Mountaineering Association and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping to jointly conduct the second national elevation survey of Mount Everest on the 30th anniversary of the mass measurement of Mount Everest in China next year. The results will be used as China. Official figures are published worldwide.