BEIJING: An 18-member Chinese expedition team reached the summit of Mount Cho Oyu, also known as Mount Qowowuyag, with an altitude of 8,201 meters, on Sunday morning.
This is the second mountain exceeding 8,000 meters that Chinese scientists have scaled to carry out research. The first was Qomolangma, or Mount Everest, the world’s highest summit, in 1960.
The team set up an automatic weather station at the summit, which is the second station at 8,000 meters that China has built. In addition to four other stations from 4,950 to 7,100 meters, all five weather stations on the world’s sixth-highest peak, Mount Cho Oyu, have been completed. Since late September, more than 120 members of 12 research groups and a support group have conducted research on Mount Qowowuyag on major issues such as ecosystems and carbon cycles, human activities, mineral resources and the geological environment in Asia. The team carried out other tasks such as drilling ice cores from different altitude gradients, measuring the thickness of snow and ice on the summit, and collecting snow and ice samples.
The Asian water tower refers to the Himalaya Mountains and surrounding regions, which includes Mount Cho Oyu. It has the world’s largest glacier, highest mountain peak and most rivers and lakes, which play an important role in the hydrological cycle and water supply of Asia. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
