UMAINE TODAY • February 22, 2021
New findings from the most comprehensive scientific expedition to Mount Everest in history, published in November in the scientific journal One Earth, identify critical information about the Earth’s highest-mountain glaciers and the impacts they’re experiencing due to climate change. As part of the 2019 Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, climate scientists, including those with the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, studied environmental changes, including in Everest’s “death zone,” to understand future impacts for life on Earth as global temperatures rise. The new research fills a critical knowledge gap about the health and status of high-mountain environments, which are incredibly difficult to study due to the inhospitable environmental conditions.