Everest Weather - Data is in the Clouds | National Geographic

Everest is one of the most extreme environments on the planet, and nobody has ever fully quantified the climate conditions up there. We're going to be pushing the envelope, attempting to install the highest weather station in the world to improve our understanding of weather patterns and climate change in the Mount Everest region. These high mountain regions are changing faster than other places around the world. The highest elevations are actually believed to be warming at faster rates than other lower elevation regions.

My major role in this expedition is to install a network of weather stations, including what we hope to be the highest weather station in the world. [Music] We're here installing the lowest of our network of weather stations, firstly to transmit the data we require. Quite a lot of power is needed; if the system doesn't have enough power, it will refuse to transmit data. That would mean we couldn't see what was going on in real-time, which is what we really want. We want to know in real-time what's going on on the mountain.

The weather station sees a whole year's worth of weather possibilities, measuring the wind speed, thermal radiation, temperature, humidity, and precipitation. We can use machine learning to provide a totally different approach to how you can forecast weather. We are filling in gaps in how the climate is changing. There are multiple stations going up, including one at Fort St, one station at base camp, one in camp two, another at the South Col, and then we will attempt to install one above eight thousand meters.

Let's face it, climbing Everest is still a very difficult thing to do. It takes years of time developing the skills, the confidence, the ability to deal with a constantly changing mountain environment, to deal with the cold, to deal with high altitude, and you can't fake it. Pretty snug, but not so snug that I'm pushing really hard against my face, and then just set your reducer right on top, and then you're going to be spinning the bottle counterclockwise.

This morning, we have installed what we call the base camp rover. It's critical to have the station here on the glacier to be able to observe and to measure the meteorological processes. We've got electronics that need to operate at extreme temperatures and exceptionally high wind speeds. Having instruments that can work in those sorts of environments has been a big challenge, and that plane is good. So yeah, tying everything. Have you already [Music]?

There's a reason that some of this has never been done before. Logistically, it's exceptionally challenging; it's physically demanding in and of itself just to climb and function up at eight thousand meters. To try to do science at some of these elevations is an added challenge. I think people are feeling as good as we can at this stage of the expedition, and we're excited to move up to camp two. [Music]

As a scientist, we're used to having to be patient with things, and this expedition has been no different. It's been nothing but eat, sleep, think Everest for the last nine months. Camp two station is in this environment, uncontrollable. It's hostile; it doesn't care whether we're successful on our expedition, and we have to be prepared to deal with that as best as possible.

It's 10:45 p.m. I'll be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. I am. I know how big the challenge is ahead. I feel very confident in our team. We know that we may be limited by the weather, so we're going to try and get up there just as the sun is rising when the winds are lowest. We have maximum for oxygen, about three hours to install the station. We need to be efficient and work as a team. [Music] [Applause] [Music]

A bit worried there won't be everything clearly; we may make a mistake. That means we leave those stations in a position that's sub-optimal, that they're not transmitting. The dark jackets, the sun's about to come up. My fear is I won't know my limitation; they're all their efforts for nothing. [Music]

It's about being resilient in the face of a mountain that really doesn't care about you. Temperatures, it's a rare opportunity to come here and do a scientific expedition like this. [Music] This is the highest weather station in the world that gives us information to plan for future scenarios of climate change. Now, Washington D.C., I've got to be the hype that's been installed—the balcony. Such a great job! [Music]