Mountain Expeditions
In 2019, Perpetual Planet Expeditions launched a series of expeditions in response to the urgent need to document and understand high alpine mountain systems facing increasing threats from climate and environmental change. These expeditions focused on three key regions around the world where mountains and their freshwater resources are most critical to downstream communities and are facing the greatest risk from climate change: Hindu-Kush Himalaya, southern Andes and western Canada. Data from these regions, which have largely been out of reach until now, have created the clearest picture yet of how scientists, decision-makers and local communities can plan for and find solutions to both present-day and future change.
By the Numbers
Mount Everest Expeditions
Beginning in 2019, Perpetual Planet Everest Expeditions carried out four scientific expeditions to Mount Everest, including one of the most comprehensive scientific expeditions ever conducted on the mountain.
Through record-breaking scientific achievements, widely used education resources, world-class storytelling and deep partnerships with Nepali communities, the expeditions have illuminated Mount Everest like never before as it confronts unprecedented climate and environmental change.
Impact
- Installed five of the highest weather stations in the world
- Provided open access, real-time weather data from the “death zone” (above 8,000 meters)
- Extracted the highest-altitude ice core from a mountain
- Improved forecasts for Sherpas, climbers and rescue pilots
- Determined the first-ever baseline data of Mount Everest’s biodiversity using environmental DNA (eDNA)
- Created the highest-resolution maps of the Khumbu Glacier and Everest Base Camp
- Ongoing capacity building and collaboration with local scientific and Sherpa communities
Tupungato Volcano Expedition
In February 2021, as part of the Perpetual Planet Tupungato Volcano Expedition, a team of National Geographic Explorers, Chilean scientists and local mountaineering guides installed the highest weather station in the Southern Hemisphere at the time. The weather station transmits freely accessible data on the conditions of one of South America’s most vulnerable water towers.
Impact
- Installed one of the highest weather stations in the Southern Hemisphere at 6,505 meters
- Providing previously inaccessible information on climate change in the High Andes
- Data is helping guide the Government of Chile’s response to the region’s ongoing megadrought
Mount Logan Expedition
Impact
- Retrieved a record-breaking ice core at 327 meters deep with a critical long-term climate record, the deepest non-polar ice core ever retrieved from the top of a mountain
- Installed the highest weather station in North America at 5,640 meters on Mount Logan’s Prospector Col, which transmits real-time, open-source climate data to local and global communities
Water Tower Index
Mountain glaciers act as “water towers” and are increasingly at risk due to climate and environmental change. Perpetual Planet Expeditions engaged 32 internationally renowned scientists to develop the Water Tower Index, which identifies the most relied upon and most vulnerable of these water towers. The Index shows that glacier-based mountain water systems around the world are vulnerable, and in many cases, critically. Expanding on the index, the Perpetual Planet Mountain Expeditions gathered scientific data from three key regions around the globe that have largely been inaccessible due to their remote and extreme environments: Hindu Kush-Himalaya, the southern Andes and western Canada.