Weather And Death On Mount Everest: An Analysis Of The Into Thin Air Storm

Moore, G. W. K.; Semple, John L.

doi:10.1175/bams-87-4-465

Cited by 29 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Figure 8 displays cross correlations for all the daily T min and T max from ERA Interim and the field data for all four AWSs. Cross-correlation functional (CCF) analysis confirms that cool weather events (Moore, 2004;Moore and Semple, 2006) extracted from the ERA Interim appeared on the same days as observations (Fig. 8, top row).…”

Section: Special Cases Of the Temperature Extremes From Era Interimsupporting

confidence: 67%

Can Temperature Extremes in East Antarctica be Replicated from ERA Interim Reanalysis?

Xie

Wang

Xiao

et al. 2016

Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research

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Section: Special Cases Of the Temperature Extremes From Era Interimsupporting

confidence: 67%

Can Temperature Extremes in East Antarctica be Replicated from ERA Interim Reanalysis?

Xie

Wang

Xiao

et al. 2016

Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research

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“…We used the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis (Kalnay et al, 1996), a meteorological dataset that captures the large-scale atmospheric flow in the vicinity of Mount Everest ( Moore and Semple, 2004;Moore and Semple, 2006), to derive a time series of wind speed and temperature at the mountain's summit. In this article, we use the data for the 62-yr period from 1948 to 2009.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With these time series, we used the expressions for WCT and FFT shown in Table 1 to calculate the climatological mean annual cycle for these parameters, thereby providing an estimate of their mean values throughout the year. In addition, we considered the temporal evolution in these parameters during the May 1996 Into Thin Air storm, the deadliest storm in Everest's history during which 8 climbers died near its summit (Krakauer, 1999;Moore and Semple, 2006). Figure 1 shows the annual cycle in WCT and FFT at the summit of Mount Everest based on daily mean climatological values.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analysis of the 1924 Mallory and Irvine attempt to summit Mount Everest (Moore et al, 2010), as well as the 1996 Into Thin Air storm (Moore and Semple, 2006), reported that large drops in barometric pressure occurred during these events, which were associated with high winds, blowing snow, and cold temperatures. On Denali, the highest mountain in North America, hypothermia is the second leading cause of death, with 16% of all fatalities being attributed to this cause (McIntosh et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Freezing and Frostbite on Mount Everest: New Insights into Wind Chill and Freezing Times at Extreme Altitude

Moore

Semple

2011

High Altitude Medicine & Biology

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Cold injury is an acknowledged risk factor for those who venture into high altitude regions. There is, however, little quantitative information on this risk that can be used to implement mitigation strategies. Here we provide the first characterization of the risk of cold injury near the summit of Mount Everest. This is accomplished through the application of a meteorological dataset that has been demonstrated to characterize conditions in the region as inputs to new parameterizations of wind chill equivalent temperature (WCT) and facial frostbite time (FFT). Throughout the year, the typical WCT near the summit of Everest is always <-30°C, and the typical FFT is always less than 20 min. During the spring climbing season, WCTs of -50°C and FFTs of 5 min are typical; during severe storms, they approach -60°C and 1 min, respectively; values typically found during the winter. Further, we show that the summit barometric pressure is an excellent predictor of summit WCT and FFT. Our results provide the first quantitative characterization of the risk of cold injury on Mount Everest and also allow for the possibility of using barometric pressure, an easily observed parameter, in real time to characterize this risk and to implement mitigation strategies. The results also provide additional confirmation as to the extreme environment experienced by those attempting to summit Mount Everest and other high mountains.

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“…There is of course variability from year to year in the summit barometric pressure, as can be seen from the figure, as well as variability on shorter time-scales due to the passage of storms and other meteorological processes (West, 1999;Moore and Semple, 2004;Moore and Semple, 2006) that can of course impact success on the mountain. Given that this warming has been ongoing since the middle of the 19th century, one can also argue that there has been a similar increase in summit barometric pressure since the British Mount Everest Expeditions of the 1920s.…”

Section: Moore and Semplmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Impact of Global Warming on Mount Everest

Moore

Semple²

2009

High Altitude Medicine & Biology

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Global warming impacts a wide range of human activities and ecosystems. One unanticipated consequence of the warming is an increase in barometric pressure throughout the troposphere. Mount Everest's extreme height and resulting low barometric pressure places humans near its summit in an extreme state of hypoxia. Here we quantify the degree with which this warming is increasing the barometric pressure near Everest's summit and argue that it is of such a magnitude as to make the mountain, over time, easier to climb.

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Weather And Death On Mount Everest: An Analysis Of The Into Thin Air Storm

Cited by 29 publications

References 18 publications

Can Temperature Extremes in East Antarctica be Replicated from ERA Interim Reanalysis?

Can Temperature Extremes in East Antarctica be Replicated from ERA Interim Reanalysis?

Freezing and Frostbite on Mount Everest: New Insights into Wind Chill and Freezing Times at Extreme Altitude

The Impact of Global Warming on Mount Everest

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