The "Pinnacle Mission" of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Expedition

13 expedition members rushed to the summit of Mount Everest, and the world's highest automatic weather station was built. In the past year or so, China has built 8 weather stations on Mount Everest to achieve a complete altitude meteorological gradient observation of Mount Everest. News 1+1 tonight connected with chen qin, reporter of the general station, and Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Polar Meteorological Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, jointly concerned about the "peak mission" of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau scientific expedition.

13 expedition members rushed to the summit of Mount Everest

13 expedition team members rushed to the summit of Mount Everest, for the first time at an altitude of 8830 meters above Everest, successfully erected the world's highest automatic weather station, at noon on May 4, 2022, with the successful summit of 13 Everest expedition team members, China's comprehensive scientific expedition to the Everest region has also opened a new page. In addition, what other tasks and details of this "peak mission" Everest scientific expedition have?

The field work cabin of the floating boat comprehensive scientific expedition team is brightly lit

Chen Qin: The place where I am now is basong Village, Tashi Zongxiang, Dingri County, where the floating boat comprehensive scientific expedition team participated in this scientific expedition activity is 4300 meters above sea level, 40 minutes drive from Everest Base Camp, and only one or two kilometers away from The Everest Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It can be seen that 4 field work cabins have been set up on the site, including 19 board rooms. The joint scientific expedition team composed of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Aerospace Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Changchun Optical Machine is the largest team in the entire "Peak Mission" Everest scientific expedition, with a total of 63 people, and 61 people have arrived now.

At this moment, the field work cabin is still brightly lit, and the team is still doing the debugging of instruments and meters. Final preparations are being made for the lift-off of the floating boat in a few days.

Peak Mission The latest work progress of the Everest scientific expedition

Chen Qin: At 8:30 a.m. today (5th), I arrived at the 5,200-meter altitude of Everest Base Camp, so why did I go so early? Because we have to go with a group of scientists, including Yao Tandong, the captain of our second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition team and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Gao Jing, the captain of the floating boat comprehensive scientific expedition team, to reach the height of Mount Everest at 6500 meters and 7028 meters by helicopter to explore, we must lower some scientific instruments and equipment to the corresponding position by helicopter, and at the same time we are also looking for the ice core drilling point of the East Rongbu Glacier on Mount Everest at a position of 6800 meters.

Today there are two teams, one is from the Northwest Institute of Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the team led by Academician Zhu Tong of the Peking University Environmental Institute, who has also reached the position of 5800 to 6300 meters at this moment. This "peak mission" Everest expedition has a total of 5 scientific expedition teams, 16 scientific expedition teams more than 270 scientific expedition team members to participate in the scientific expedition mission, they are now also distributed in different altitudes on Mount Everest.

What is the situation on the Tibetan Plateau in the third season of the earth?

When information about the melting of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic appears frequently in the news, what is the situation facing the Tibetan Plateau, known as the "third season of the earth", in the context of global warming? Why should a comprehensive "physical examination" of the Everest Glacier be carried out, and how is the relevant work promoted?

What does it mean for the initial completion of China's Everest gradient meteorological observation system?

Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau and Polar Meteorology of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences: We have now deployed 8 meteorological stations at different altitudes in the Everest area, which means that our meteorological observation system covers different ecosystems from 8800 meters above sea level to 5200 meters above sea level, including glaciers, frozen soil, snow and other elements. This system can greatly improve our understanding of plateau meteorology and can greatly improve our meteorological forecasting capabilities.

In addition, it also proves that china has made a major change in the way of scientific research. Because in the past, our scientists did things on their own, and the ability to complete the task was actually limited, but this time we also gave full play to the role of scientists, local governments, and the Tibetan mountaineering team, and worked together to complete this task. This transformation of scientific research methods will have a significant impact on our observation system and on the enhancement of altitude observation capabilities in the future.

What is the value of the data observed after the erection of the Everest Weather Station?

Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau and Polar Meteorology of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences: These data are unique in the world, we have now set up 8 weather stations, and every day's data acquisition is to make up for the gap. If this observation system can last for a year or more, and the relevant data are released to the world, we can attract scientists from all over the world to pay attention to the study of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, jointly promote the ecological protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and enhance our forecasting ability and disaster prevention and mitigation ability of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Why do you need a comprehensive "physical examination" of the Everest Glacier?

Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau and Polar Meteorology of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences: The impact of glaciers on the plateau on human beings is very large.

On the one hand, it has great benefits, for example, the glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, as an important part of the "Water Tower of Asia", can affect about 2 billion people from East Asia to Southeast Asia, playing a role in welfare and well-being. In addition, due to climate change, plateau glaciers will also have many disasters, from 1970 to 2020, the glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as a whole have shrunk by about 17%, especially in recent years, the increase in plateau glacier disasters has brought great challenges to the production and life of the plateau people.

So how will it change in the future? We do not know clearly enough, in order to better develop the plateau area, understand how to better protect the glaciers of the plateau, protect the ecological environment of the plateau, we must strengthen the study of the plateau, so as to enhance our ability to use glaciers, but also to avoid glacier disasters.

This time, we have a lot of high-tech means!

Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau and Polar Meteorology of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences: Compared with the first comprehensive scientific expedition of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the 1970s, the second comprehensive expedition to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau launched by the mainland in 2017 has made significant progress in all aspects. In the past, our predecessors relied more on people carrying and yak transportation, so the scale and location of the investigation were limited, and the aspects involved in scientific research were also limited.

The second Tibetan Plateau expedition conducted research on 8 questions, why can this be done? The core is because we now have a lot of high-tech means. I personally feel that the first Tibetan Plateau scientific expedition was more about how we know the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and then understand the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and now our goal is to directly target how to protect the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and our concept of scientific investigation has also risen greatly, which is also a very important difference for me.

What are your expectations for the results of future scientific expeditions?

Ding Minghu, deputy director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau and Polar Meteorology of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences: From my personal point of view, I am still most concerned about the erection of 8 gradient weather stations. How they can obtain data for a long time can make up for the gap in our meteorological observations in highland areas, especially in extremely high altitude areas. All along, our ability to forecast and predict alpine meteorology, especially the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, in China and even the world, is very limited, and our ability to provide protection for the people of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is also insufficient.

If the detection data is fully effective, it can greatly improve the level of our forecast of plateau meteorology, and then we can bring better services to the people of the plateau.

Source: CCTV news client