NASA Earth Observatory image: Sagarmatha: “mother of the universe”

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data from the NASA EO-1 team, archived on the USGS Earth Explorer.

Fourteen mountain peaks on Earth stand taller than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet).

The tallest of these “eight-thousanders” is Mount Everest, the standard to which all other mountains are compared.

The Nepalese name for the mountain is Sagarmatha: “mother of the universe.”

Everest’s geological story began 40 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent began a slow-motion collision with Asia.

John McPhee

The edges of two continents jammed together and pushed up the massive ridges that make up the Himalayas today.

Pulitzer-winning journalist John McPhee summed up the wonder of the mountain’s history when he wrote Annals of the Former World:

"The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the Earth. If by some fiat, I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence; this is the one I would choose."

In other words, when climbers reach the top of Mount Everest, they are not standing on hard igneous rock produced by volcanoes.

Rather, they are perched on softer sedimentary rock formed by the skeletons of creatures that lived in a warm ocean off the northern coast of India tens of millions of years ago.

Meanwhile, glaciers have chiseled Mount Everest’s summit into a huge, triangular pyramid, defined by three faces and three ridges that extend to the northeast, southeast, and northwest.

Edmund Hillary

The southeastern ridge is the most widely used climbing route. It is the one that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay followed in May 1953 when they became the first climbers to reach the summit and return safely.

Despite its reputation as an extremely dangerous mountain, commercial guiding has done much to tame Everest in the last few decades.

As of March 2012, there had been 5,656 successful ascents of Everest, while 223 people had died—a fatality rate of 4 percent.

Climate Change in Himalayas: Extensive Glacial Retreat in Mount Everest Region

A new study finds a decline in snow and ice on Mount Everest (second peak from left) and the national park surrounding it. 

Credit: Pavel Novak

Researchers taking a new look at the snow and ice covering Mount Everest and the national park that surrounds it are finding abundant evidence that the world's tallest peak is shedding its frozen cloak.

The scientists have also been studying temperature and precipitation trends in the area and found that the Everest region has been warming while snowfall has been declining since the early 1990s.

Members of the team conducting these studies will present their findings on May 14 at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico -- a scientific conference organized and co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Sudeep Thakuri

Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180 meters (590 feet), according to Sudeep Thakuri, who is leading the research as part of his PhD graduate studies at the University of Milan in Italy.

Glaciers smaller than one square kilometer are disappearing the fastest and have experienced a 43 percent decrease in surface area since the 1960s.

Because the glaciers are melting faster than they are replenished by ice and snow, they are revealing rocks and debris that were previously hidden deep under the ice.

These debris-covered sections of the glaciers have increased by about 17 percent since the 1960s, according to Thakuri.

The ends of the glaciers have also retreated by an average of 400 meters since 1962, his team found.

The researchers suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is from human-generated greenhouse gases altering global climate.

However, they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate change, Thakuri said.

He and his team determined the extent of glacial change on Everest and the surrounding 1,148 square kilometer (713 square mile) Sagarmatha National Park by compiling satellite imagery and topographic maps and reconstructing the glacial history.

Their statistical analysis shows that the majority of the glaciers in the national park are retreating at an increasing rate, Thakuri said.

"The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream during the dry season," said Thakuri.

"Downstream populations are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and power production."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Water Research Institute-Italian National Research Council are funding this research.

Himalayas: Mount Everest at sunset

The last light of the day sets on Mount Everest in the Himalayas

Picture: Kevin Frayer

Nepalese Cabinet and Politicians meet below Mount Everest

Nepalese politicians take part in a cabinet meeting at Kalapattar Plateau near Mount Everest, at an altitude of 5,262 metres (17,192 feet).

A demonstration to raise further attention to climate change and global warming.

Hands up for hot soup!

Picture: AFP/GETTY