Weather Observations Reach the Summit of Mount Everest

Abstract

The predictability of the weather on Mount Everest’s upper slopes can be a matter of life or death for those trying to climb the world’s highest mountain, yet the performance of forecasts has been almost unknown due to a lack of surface observations. The extent to which climate change may be affecting this iconic location is also uncertain for the same reason. To address this data limitation, the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Expedition installed the world’s highest weather station network (reaching within 420 m of the summit) on the Nepal side of Mount Everest in 2019. Its observations have already generated considerable advances in understanding the meteorological environment on the mountain’s upper slopes, but the network was compromised by damage to the highest stations in recent years. Here, we describe the expedition that upgraded the network and took it to new heights, focusing on the installation at the Bishop Rock (8,810 m MSL), just below the summit. Almost 70 years after Everest was first climbed successfully, we can now provide open access data to illuminate conditions at Earth’s highest climate frontier.