Translated from www.people.com        15^th, August

At the Fourth International Symposium on the Tibetan Plateau, Prof. Yao Tandong, director of ITP said that, though Mount Everest slightly grows due to geological structural movement, Mount Everest is actually decreasing in height. Behind it is global warming, which brings about the escalation of the thickening of glaciers.

He went on to explain that since global warming, temperature increases, thus speeds up the conversion process from snow to ice and the thickening of glaciers. Consequently, the ice cap begins to fall dramatically. Studies show that the dramatic fall of Mount Everest since 1992 corresponds with the intense warming period worldwide.

Before global warming, the process of glacial formation on the Plateau mainly relied on the gravity and descending of snow itself, thus the conversion process from snow to ice was slow. This thickening process resembled the freezing process in Antarctic and Arctic. Monitoring and observation carried out by Prof Chen Junnan, academician of CAS show that Mount Everest began to fall ever since 1966. It has decreased by 1.3m during the short period from 1966 to 1989. Prof Yao considered it improper to owe this decrease to the movements of the continental plates. In his opinion, Prof. Chen’s research confirmed the interaction between climate and glaciers behind the falling of Mount Everest.