The world highest peak is now Everest Base Camp threatened by climate change , Mount Everest base camp, a majestic tent village that serves as a home away ambitious summiteers ,
The Everest Base Camp is facing considerable risk from the melt of the nearby Khumbu glacier, according to Taranath Adhikari, Director-General of Nepal’s Department of Tourism. As issues affecting Base Camp, the Nepali cited “human-related activities” — also known as man-made or caused by human presence — and climate change. The Khumbu glacier is melting faster than it should be.
A constant threat is the rapid accumulation of glacial lakes on Everest, threaten to burst and flood the Sherpa homeland. A recent study published in the Nature Portfolio Journal of Climate and Atmospheric Science revealed that ice formed on the South Col Glacier over a period of 2,000 years melted in about 25 years.
According to research from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, the Khumbu glacier has lost the equivalent of 2,000 years of ice in just 30 years.
This issue is made worse by the sheer number of visitors to the camp, where over 1,500 people stay for at least two months during the climbing season. The massive amount of trash that has accumulated around the base camp since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa first summited in 1953. Once the waste has accumulated, mountain cleanup is a dangerous and expensive job.
It will take another 50 to 100 years to clean up the existing waste from all mountains,” according to current estimates that the government is spending $1.5 to $2 million per year on clean-up. The garbage and human waste dumped by these is just turning the Khumbu glacier into a polluted river down the mountains.
Everest is facing new challenges as a result of climate change and tourism.
