Everest Station, August 14 (Report) — In the Everest National Park in Tingri County, Tibet Autonomous Region, on the way to Mount Everest along the Everest Road, about 50 kilometers from the Everest Base Camp, there is a two-story building with a red-and-yellow main structure. In a long area in front of the building, various types of observation instruments of different shapes are deployed, quite eye-catching.

　　This is the National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station for Special Atmospheric Processes and Environmental Changes in the Tibet Everest Region (referred to as Everest Station), built and operated under the auspices of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITP). It is both a field station focused on comprehensive observation and research of the atmosphere and environment of Mount Everest and a base camp for scientists conducting scientific expeditions and research activities in the Everest region. On clear days, from the area upstairs and in front of the Everest Station building, one can clearly gaze at the summit of Mount Everest, the top of the world, in the distance.

　　Xi Zhenhua, observation supervisor at Everest Station, has worked at the station for 11 years. He introduced that Everest Station was established in 2005. Starting from a tent, Everest Station has gradually developed into a comprehensive observation and research station with complete facilities and full instrumentation, and in 2021 it was approved as one of 69 national field scientific observation and research stations.

　　The station headquarters of Everest Station is at an altitude of 4,276 meters, located in Zhaxizong Township, Tingri County, about 80 kilometers from Tingri County seat and about 650 kilometers from Lhasa. It has two areas: an observation field and an office and living area. To provide better base-camp support services for scientific expedition and research personnel, Everest Station also has a vegetable and fruit greenhouse and a half-standard basketball court.

Observation instruments inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences Everest Station. The snow peak in the clouds between the two arc-shaped mountain tops, high and low, is Mount Everest, the top of the world.

　　Everest Station also has multiple field observation sample plots that can fully represent the ecological and landscape geographical characteristics of the Everest region, mainly including one alpine shrub plot covering about 20 mu (altitude 4,650 meters), three alpine meadow sample plots covering 100 square meters each (altitude 4,475 meters), and observation points such as alpine gravel (altitude 5,200 meters), glacier terminus (altitude 5,820 meters), and glacier pass (altitude 6,500 meters).

　　The scientific goal of Everest Station is to correctly understand the atmospheric processes, surface processes, and subsurface processes of the Himalayan region and their relationship with weather and climate change in China, East Asia, and even the world through observation and research on the atmosphere, glaciers, ecology, and geophysics, and to make it a base for scientific observation, experiments, and science popularization.

　　Researcher Han Cunbo of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, comes to Everest Station at irregular intervals every year to install or maintain observation instruments and equipment and carry out related scientific research work. He pointed out that the Everest region is one of the regions with the most complex terrain and underlying surface conditions on the Tibetan Plateau and even in the world. Studying the land-atmosphere interaction processes in this region and exploring its energy and water cycle patterns not only helps to deeply understand the response of the Everest region to global change, but is also of great significance for improving the accuracy of regional weather forecasts and climate predictions. For a long time, the Everest region lacked relevant observational data, and the establishment of Everest Station filled this gap and obtained valuable comprehensive observational data in multiple disciplines such as meteorology, environment, ecology, and hydrology. These data provide scientific data support for deeply understanding the land-atmosphere interaction processes of the complex mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and for improving numerical models and remote sensing retrieval algorithms.

　　It is understood that the observation content of Everest Station covers atmospheric physics (routine meteorological observation, atmospheric boundary layer observation, atmospheric turbulence and radiation observation), atmospheric environment (atmospheric aerosol observation, atmospheric pollen monitoring, atmospheric precipitation isotope observation, sun photometer), hydrology (river hydrological cross-section observation, river water sample collection), geophysics (seismic observation, GPS positioning monitoring), ecology (plant phenology monitoring, carbon dioxide/methane monitoring), and other aspects.

At the Chinese Academy of Sciences Everest Station, the probe of a scientific research observation instrument seems to be "reaching for the moon."

　　In terms of international cooperation, since the establishment of Everest Station, more than 100 person-times of international peers from the United States, Japan, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and other countries have visited to carry out related scientific research exchange activities.

　　Xi Zhenhua said that in addition to the daily comprehensive observation and research of the field station itself and its role as the base camp for scientific expedition and research personnel in the Everest region, actively carrying out science popularization activities is also an important task of Everest Station. At present, Everest Station is a national science popularization education base of the China Association for Science and Technology, a "Science Popularization China" Tibetan Plateau Earth Science Science Popularization Education Base, a science popularization education base of the Tibet Autonomous Region Association for Science and Technology, and a scientific exploration science popularization base. Just a few days ago, the 2024 Tibet Youth Summer Science Popularization Study Camp and the 2024 Field Station Observation and Data Management Skills Training Class came together to visit and exchange at Everest Station.

　　According to the reporter's observation during more than 10 days of work and life at Everest Station, as the saying goes, "the barracks remain iron-clad while the soldiers flow like water"; here too, "Everest Station remains iron-clad while researchers flow like water." It is precisely this coming-and-going, constantly renewed interdisciplinary exchange and interaction that has made scientific expedition and research activities in the Everest region increasingly active, related research results continuously emerging, and domestic and international influence growing ever greater.