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Besides installing five weather stations, Rolex and National Geographic Society collect precious scientific data during the Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition to Mount Everest
Do you know where the highest weather station in the world is situated at? The Balcony weather station is found on Mount Everest at 8,430m above sea level and was newly installed only earlier this year as part of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition to Mount Everest.
Led by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Tribhuvan University, an international team of scientists and explorers conducted a scientific expedition to Mount Everest between April and June 2019. The trip is believed to be the most comprehensive single scientific expedition to the mountain in history. During the expedition, the multidisciplinary team installed not one but five weather stations on Mount Everest, which is known locally as Sagarmatha or Chomolungma.
Why does the team need to install weather stations high up on the icy cold mountains, one may ask? The Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition is part of a robust effort to reveal new insights about the impacts of climate change on some of the Earth’s most extreme and unique environments. And in this case, the expedition to Chomolungma is focused on understanding the effects of climate change on the glaciers and environment of the Karakoram Range, with implications for the Hindu Kush–Himalaya. The glaciers form a critical water tower that helps supply water to more than a billion people throughout the region, and they are shrinking, placing millions at risk from deadly flooding and landslides in the near term. The situation is expected to worsen in the future with possibilities of droughts and water scarcity.