Mount Everest is now 86 cm higher, as of today
After decades of wrangling, China and Nepal finally agreed on the exact height of Mount Everest, and this agreement added to the height of the mountain, which is already the highest in the world.
The agreed height of the "roof of the world" located at the border between China and Nepal is 8848.86 meters, according to what was announced at a joint press conference held in Kathmandu.
Consequently, the height of Everest increased by 86 cm, compared to the previous measurements used by Nepal, compared to more than four meters relative to the measurements of China.
This difference is due to the fact that China was measuring the rocky base of the summit and not the snow cover that is now being taken into account.
Nepal had decided to conduct its own study in this regard after information about the possibility that the movement of tectonic plates, which led, for example, to a strong earthquake in 2015, may have affected the height of the mountain.
About 300 Nepalese specialists participated in the study, some of whom worked in the field and others had helicopters to reach data collection stations.
Last spring, Nepalese experts and climbers reached the summit of the mountain with 40 kilograms of equipment.
Nepal was supposed to publish its results at the beginning of the year, but China wanted to engage in its role in this issue after a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the country in October 2019.
A Chinese delegation headed to the site this summer, taking advantage of less cold weather conditions and the prevailing calm in the country. The site was closed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
Dang Yamin, an expert with the National Bureau of Studies and Cartography, revealed in statements to China Central Television (CCTV) that the agreed-upon height is an average of the data provided by Nepal and those concluded by China, in accordance with scientific methods.
The height of Everest was determined for the first time at 8,840 meters in 1856 by geographers from the British Empire.
An Indian study re-assessed this altitude at the widely accepted level of 8,848 meters, after the first climbers reached the summit of the mountain on May 29, 1953.
In 1999, the National Geographic Society of the United States concluded that the height of the mountain was 8,850 meters, and Nepal did not recognize One day at this level.
China, in turn, conducted special studies, announced in 2005 that the height of the mountain reached 43,8844 meters, which caused a dispute with Nepal that was only resolved in 2010 after the two parties admitted that the difference in calculations was due to a difference in the measurement approach.
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