BEIJING - Chinese mountaineers and researchers climbed to the top of Mount Everest on Sunday to determine whether the world's tallest mountain is still growing.
They placed a survey beacon on the summit and set up radar and Global Positioning System instruments to measure its precise height, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
In 1975 Chinese scientists measured the height of Everest at 8,848.13 metres (29,029 feet, 3 inches), a few centimetres (inches) more than an Indian survey had found in the 1950s. But in 1999 a U.S. team measured the mountain at 8,850 metres.
Growing or not, Everest is changing in other ways. Its glaciers are shrinking on the Chinese side faster than ever because of global warming, official media reported last week.
The mountain, known to Chinese as Qomolangma, straddles the border between China and Nepal. The new measurement of its height is due to be released by August.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
