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"Peak Mission 2022" Everest Expedition
All 13 expedition climbers reached the summit
The five-star red flag flutters on top of the world
A member of the Mainland Expedition
Successfully erected the world's highest altitude weather station
The reporter learned from the forward command of the Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5200 meters that the members of the mainland scientific expedition team successfully set up an automatic meteorological observation station at an altitude of more than 8800 meters on Mount Everest. This is the world's highest altitude automatic meteorological observatory and the last weather station erected during the "Pinnacle Mission" Everest expedition.
For the first time, the expedition team also used high-precision radar at the "Top of the Earth" to measure the thickness of ice and snow at the summit.
In the tent of the commander-in-chief conference room at the foot of Mount Everest at an altitude of 5200 meters, Yao Tandong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and captain of the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition team, announced on the spot: "The 'peak mission' Mount Everest scientific expedition has successfully observed and sampled!" At the scene, everyone warmly applauded and shook hands to celebrate.
According to reports, the scientific expedition team will also carry out a number of scientific investigations and studies in the future.
What world records will the Everest expedition break?
Interview with Academician Yao Tandong
Why does the state attach so much importance to the protection and research of the Tibetan Plateau and Mount Everest? What are the missions of the expedition team members who rushed to the top of Mount Everest? What world records will be broken by the relevant research? ......
With these questions in mind, the reporter recently interviewed Yao Tandong, the leader of the second Qinghai-Tibet Plateau comprehensive scientific expedition research team, the on-site commander-in-chief, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"Guard the last pure land in the world"
Reporter: The party and the state have always attached great importance to climate and environmental changes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and related scientific research. In 2017, when the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition was launched, General Secretary Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter and put forward ardent expectations. How do you view the important position of the Tibetan Plateau in scientific research and the important mission of the Second Qinghai-Tibet Expedition?
Yao Tandong: As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his congratulatory letter, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the roof of the world, the water tower of Asia, the third pole of the earth, an important ecological security barrier and strategic resource reserve base of the mainland, and an important protection area of the Chinese national characteristic culture. Carrying out this scientific investigation and research, revealing the mechanism of environmental change on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and optimizing the ecological security barrier system will have a very important impact on promoting the sustainable development of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, promoting the construction of national ecological civilization, and promoting the protection of global ecological environment.
In fact, New China's scientific research on the Tibetan Plateau began in the 1950s. In the early 1970s, when our country was still in difficulty, the first comprehensive scientific expedition to the Tibetan Plateau was launched. In December 2003, the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was established, specializing in comprehensive scientific research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The mission of the country's second comprehensive investigation and study of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is to focus on water, ecology and human activities in accordance with the requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping, focus on solving the problems of the carrying capacity of resources and environments, disaster risks, and green development paths on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and make new contributions to protecting the world's last pure land and building a beautiful Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, so that the people of all ethnic groups on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau can live happier and healthier.
In the comprehensive scientific expedition of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the first time is mainly to "explore the bottom of the family", and the second time is to "see the changes". We should strive to make major scientific breakthroughs and provide a basis for decision-making on the economic and social development and ecological and environmental protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
"Professional expedition team members are expected to reach the summit of Mount Everest for the first time"
Reporter: Why is the goal of this year's scientific expedition locked on Mount Everest? What topics are planned to be investigated?
Yao Tandong: The Everest expedition is actually an important part of the second Qinghai-Tibet expedition, which we have been planning for many years. Mount Everest is the symbol of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and from a scientific point of view, the climate and environmental changes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau can be described as a trigger for the rest of the world.
First of all, the Tibetan Plateau is the water tower of Asia, from which many important rivers in the world originate, thus benefiting mankind.
Second, from an ecological point of view. Heading south from Mount Everest, below is the Ganges Plain, which is close to zero meters above sea level. In other words, the straight-line distance is only two or three hundred kilometers, and the altitude difference is more than eight kilometers. The distribution of animals and plants and the change of ecosystems here are equivalent to a miniature landscape of the earth, which is also one of the biggest charms of Mount Everest.
Third, from a climate perspective. The Tibetan Plateau is a giant regulator of monsoons and westerly winds, with important implications for global climate change.
This year, we plan to apply advanced technologies, methods and means for the first time, focusing on major scientific issues such as westerly-monsoon synergy, changes in Asian water towers, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human activities, to jointly investigate and study the vertical change characteristics and interaction mechanisms of the six major circles in the Everest region, and to reveal the environmental changes in the extremely high altitude area of Mount Everest under the background of climate warming, the characteristics of greenhouse gas concentration changes, the carbon sink function of ecosystems, and the adaptation characteristics of human beings to extreme environments, so as to achieve new breakthroughs in earth system scientific research. Put forward an innovative scientific plan for the nature conservation of Mount Everest, serving the construction of the ecological civilization highland on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the environmental protection and green development of the third pole.
We organized 5 scientific expedition teams, with 16 scientific expedition teams, with a total of more than 270 scientific expedition team members participating. This is the second comprehensive scientific expedition with the widest coverage of disciplines and the largest number of participants since the launch of the Qinghai-Tibet Scientific Expedition in 2017.
An important task of the Everest expedition is to build 8 weather stations from 5200 meters above sea level to 8800 meters, of which 4 are above 7000 meters above sea level. Once successfully erected, the 8,800-meter weather station will become the highest automatic weather station in the world.
Reporter: For many years, around Mount Everest, scientific expeditions and mountaineering have been closely integrated. We learned that a group of mountaineers were specially trained to carry out the task of climbing to the summit. The general public would love to know more about this.
Yao Tandong: In the 1950s and 1960s, the summit of Mount Everest was a big event. At that time, it was called mountaineering expedition, and climbing to the top was the first goal, and the expedition was an accessory, and how much could be done. Later, scientists as independent forces did various scientific expeditions in this area, parallel to mountaineering. However, for such an iconic site as Mount Everest, scientists have mostly done research on the height of five or six kilometers, and there are very few samples of more than eight kilometers, and there are still many gaps in the study of the summit of Mount Everest. For example, as the global climate warms, will the snow and ice at the summit melt? What happens to the ecosystem from the base of the mountain to the summit? What are the changes in greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants such as carbon dioxide? Many problems must be confirmed by observation, and science cannot be hypothesized.
This time, we integrated a mountaineering team of more than ten people, and specially trained for two years for the collection of samples, erection and use of instruments and equipment, and recently carried out intensive training. As members of the professional expedition team, they are expected to achieve summit sampling for the first time, performing work tasks such as gradient weather station erection, peak shallow ice core drilling and peak radar thickness measurement.
"Comprehensive scientific expedition with the most advanced instruments and equipment"
Reporter: The instruments and equipment used in this extremely high altitude scientific expedition, especially the instruments and equipment that the climbers need to carry, have they been specially designed and modified to adapt to the climatic environment of Mount Everest and the portable requirements of mountaineering?
Yao Tandong: We have put forward special requirements to instrument companies, such as low temperature resistance, low pressure resistance, high cold resistance, etc., and have made a lot of improvements to the instruments and equipment, as far as possible to achieve light weight and good performance.
Reporter: Compared with the first comprehensive scientific expedition on the Tibetan Plateau in the 1970s, has there been a huge change in the technical equipment of this expedition?
Yao Tandong: Yes. Looking back at the field expeditions decades ago, our students used the "three major pieces" of geological hammers, compasses and notebooks, geological hammers were used to strike rocks to observe weathering, etc., compasses were used to discern directions, and notebooks were used to draw sketches. At that time, only teachers could have cameras and barometers.
The first Qinghai-Tibet expedition was basically descriptive, mainly to see what was there. Scientific research should go from qualitative to quantitative, and the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition should also look at what has changed there, from description to revelation of the mechanism of the process, and then confirm with questions. This is a change in the scientific expedition paradigm.
Over the past few decades, the improvement of our country's comprehensive strength and the progress of science and technology have supported the upgrading of scientific expedition equipment. The state provides special funding guarantees for the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition, and this year's Everest scientific expedition is also the most advanced comprehensive scientific expedition using instruments and equipment since the launch of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau comprehensive scientific expedition. Such as unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ships, air balloons and airships, etc., have been applied to research and investigation. In addition, we will use helicopters this time, which is the first time in the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition.
"Some areas of research are already in the first international phalanx"
Reporter: The scientific research around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has attracted worldwide attention, is the relevant scientific research of mainland scientists in a leading position in the world?
Yao Tandong: Since the 1950s, the mainland has carried out many special and comprehensive scientific expeditions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has established a number of observation stations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, including The Everest Station, Namcuo Station, Tibet Southeast Station, Ali Station, etc. in Tibet, and continues to carry out relevant scientific research.
The scope of research on the Tibetan Plateau is very extensive, including geophysics, geological structure, ecology, environment and so on. The research of mainland scientists, especially in the past two or three decades with the support of major national basic research projects, has been in the first phalanx internationally, for example, including the field of climate change such as glacier change, as well as the field of ecology. With the advancement of research, I believe that we will show more new discoveries and new progress in the world, and will have more international discourse power in related scientific research fields.
Source: Xinmin Evening News Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency
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