Two one - time of day documentaries premiering tonight reveal whatMount Everestis really like — and what scientist can learn from studying it .
But Mount Everest is n’t only achallengefor adventure - seekers and intrepid investigators — it also holds thousands of age ’ Charles Frederick Worth of information about how climate change has altered the environment , which can help scientist prognosticate its future core . InExpedition Everest , air at 10 p.m. EDT , actor Tate Donovan tell the journey of an outside mathematical group of scientist and climbers with an ambitious set of data - collecting aim .
One task is to use drones , optical maser scanners , and cameras to capture footage of every column inch of the ascent , so investigator can create a 360 - grade portrait of the mountain and track how arctic fade alters the landscape in the coming years . Since the Himalayas curb the water supply for around one - fourth of the world ’s universe , the increase in glacial thaw — which has already replicate since 2000 — could threaten the futures of billions of the great unwashed go in the realm .
Even more contiguous is the risk of newsflash flood , which are hard to predict without a never-ending feed of atmospheric condition datum from high ALT . Another goal of the expedition is to install weather stations at five locations along the climbing path , which will supervise temperature , humidity , air pressure , wind upper , and other factors that aid alert meteorologists to an impending flood .
Some researcher have join the hostile expedition to drill deep into the ice at an ALT above 8000 meters ( 26,000 feet)—Mount Everest ’s " death zone"—and collect ice core . These prospicient tubes of methamphetamine disclose how the atmosphere has changed over thousands of years . Others are collecting similar substance of deposit at the bottom of a lake , as well as examining how flora and animal life has adapted to the warming temperature and rising pee spirit level .
Overall , Expedition Everestillustrates how the Himalayas purpose as an early indicator of what mood change will do to other places .
As climate scientist Anton Seimon explain in the documentary , “ We ’re get a windowpane into what the sleep of the world is start to experience — and likely to experience in develop proportions . ”
you may watch the bivalent feature tonight , June 30 , at 9 p.m. EDT on National Geographic .
