Via Eurekalert and the “climate doesn’t kill people, weather does” department
Research considers role of weather in historic Everest tragedy
Their legend has inspired generations of mountaineers since their ill-fated attempt to climb Everest over 80 years ago, and now a team of scientists believe they have discovered another important part of the puzzle as to why George Mallory and Andrew Irvine never returned from their pioneering expedition. The research, published in Weather, explores the unsolved mystery and uses newly uncovered historical data collected during their expedition to suggest that extreme weather may have contributed to their disappearance.
George Mallory and Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine disappeared during their historic 1924 attempt to reach the summit of Everest. The pair were last seen on June 8th on Everest’s Northeast Ridge, before vanishing into the clouds and into the history books. For decades a vigorous debate has raged regarding their climb, their disappearance and if they were successful in reaching the summit.
“The disappearance of Mallory and Irvine is one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century, yet throughout the debates surrounding their disappearance the issue of the weather has never really been addressed,” said lead author Professor G.W.K Moore of the Physics Department at the University of Toronto. “Until we completed our study the only information available was an observation by mountaineer Noel Odell, who was climbing behind Mallory and Irvine, who claimed that a blizzard occurred on the afternoon that they disappeared.”
Many writers have since ignored the storm as Odell believed it had only lasted a short time. However the size and extreme height of Everest mean that Odell’s observations have always been difficult to place into context, making the blizzard potentially more significant than first realised.
This latest research focuses on meteorological measurements from the 1924 expedition which the authors uncovered at the Royal Geographical Society library in London. Although the data was published as a table in a 1926 report on the expedition, it was never analysed for information on the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine until this study.
“We analysed the barometric pressure measurements and found out that during the Mallory and Irvine summit attempt, there was a drop in barometric pressure at base camp of approximately 18mbar. This is quite a large drop, in comparison the deadly 1996 ‘Into Thin Air’ storm had a pressure drop at the summit of approximately 8 mbar,” said Moore. “We concluded that Mallory and Irvine most likely encountered a very intense storm as they made their way towards the summit.”
“Mount Everest is so high that there is barely enough oxygen near its summit to sustain life and a drop of pressure of 4 mbar at the summit is sufficient to drive individuals into a hypoxic state,” said Dr. John Semple an experienced mountaineer and the Chief of Surgery at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.
The authors conclude that with the additional stresses they were under with extreme cold, high winds and the uncertainly of their route, the pressure drop and the ensuring hypoxia contributed to the Mallory and Irving’s death.
This research not only contributes a new, and perhaps final, chapter to the Mallory legend, but is also of importance to modern mountain climbers as the same types of storms and hypoxic stresses continue to confront those who take on the world’s great mountains.
The Mallory and Irvine storm serves as both an example and a warning of the magnitude of the pressure drops that can occur and the severe physiological impact they can have.
“Over the 8 decades since Mallory and Irvine died we have learned a lot about Mount Everest and the risks that climbers attempting to climb it face”, concluded Moore. “The weather is perhaps the greatest unknown and we hope that this line of research will help educate modern climbers as to the risks that they face.”
I’ve been to Everest twice (trekking to the bottom only, not climbing to the top) and this seems ludicrous. People are always dying in the upper Khumbu Valley and on Everest for a variety of reasons. Some are vaguely weather related, and some are not.
In 1995 two trekkers died separately on Cho La pass from heart failure, one in his 50’s, the other in his 20’s. A couple weeks later, an intense blizzard inundated the upper Khumbu and over 100 trekkers, guides, and porters found themselves stranded without supplies in Lobuche, and had to make an organized effort to break out through the chest-deep snow. Over the hill in the Gokyo Valley, more than 30 Japanese trekkers and Nepali guides were killed in an avalanche caused by the same storm. Of course there are many other stories.
Did “the weather” cause any of this? In a vague way, yes. But that doesn’t explain why some succumb (to bad planning, bad health, bad luck) and others do not.
To connect the deaths of Mallory and Irvine to “the weather” is just silly.
The story of finding Mallory’s body several years ago was quite interesting. It seemed to show that they simply fell to their death. Mallory one way and Irvine, apparently the other. His grip on the rocks and the position of his legs showed he survived the fall. Birds had picked at exposed parts, but his body was, of course, remarkably preserved. Those who found him surmised he survived the storm but fell in the darkness on their way down after not being able to scale the second step. And they had used primitive supplemental oxygen on the climb, although I think they discarded it for the summit assault.
Maybe it was heatstroke??
I climb I cave I horseback ride.
I lost my fiance to a fall in the Rockies, my best friend to a fall in a New York state park, another friend to a fall in a pit cave, another friend to being crushed by a falling rock in a cave, a couple of other friends to drowning while cave diving. I have had friends break their backs when thrown from a horse.
You do extreme sports you can die – end of story.
Extreme weather cause their deaths? Impossible! This was 80 years ago, and we all know that there never were extreme weather events before mankind perturbed the stable climate/weather of the world with CO2 pollution.
Interesting, though, 18 mbar is a large drop. But I suspect it’s as simple as the fall scenario, whether that was caused by the weather or not. Certainly there’s no shortage of reasons, from weather to accidents to poor planning, to explain deadly disasters at the edge of the human survival envelope. I remember watching the film of Nanook of the North, and reading that the photographer/documentarian who filmed it went back the next year and found that Nanook and his whole family had been wiped out when the ice broke up underneath them.
Mallory and Irvine on Everest: Did extreme weather cause their disappearance?
Has anyone considered extreme climate?
The weather could well have played a part in their tragic demise. As the article said, a drop in air pressure at that altitude can have bad effects on an already marginal situation in the ‘death zone’.
Gary does not appreciate how severe an 18 mbar drop, when “a drop of pressure of 4 mbar at the summit is sufficient to drive individuals into a hypoxic state”. While he apparently made it to base camp at 18,192 ft, even hiking rapidly to 8,000 ft can cause altitude sickness to those who have not acclimatized.
Small changes at life critical boundaries can cause death. However, humans tolerate living conditions from -50C to +50 C. Statistically cold temperatures cause much higher sickness and death rates than warming. A +1 C change in the mean temperature is likely to reduce deaths, not increase them. See Ch 9 Human Health Effects in Climate Change Reconsidered
PS typo: change to “ensuing hypoxia”
dfbaskwill says:
August 2, 2010 at 8:17 am
The story of finding Mallory’s body several years ago was quite interesting. It seemed to show that they simply fell to their death.
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Hypoxia will certainly make you fall.
I agree with Garry, and “more significant than first realised.” now where have we heard those words before.
Also this blog always tries to emphasize empirical evidence, i.e. real stuff on the ground, not ivory towers navel gazing.
This is real evidence: “… the only information available was an observation by mountaineer Noel Odell, who was climbing behind Mallory and Irvine, who claimed that a blizzard occurred on the afternoon that they disappeared.”
I’d take the word of the guy who was climbing there on the same day in the same place over the ideas of latter day “researchers”.
Come on folks, it’s time you got out a bit.
I think this justifies a massive international campaign to INCREASE C02 in the atmosphere in order to warm up Everest! Do your part to ensure that Mallory and Irvine shall not have died in vain!!!
Good Lord, Gail, I am sorry to hear that.
It wasn’t the weather. It wasn’t climate. It wasn’t the fall. It was the sudden stop wot dunnit. Dead, I tell ya’.
The researchers must not have anything better to do nowadays.
This brings up a hot-button issue of mine. Extreme sporters should pay for their own rescue should they need it. They should be required to be bonded, just like engineers and construction bosses, and/or carry high priced rescue insurance. If they don’t and they are in distress or they disappear, sorry, but whatever caused it just doesn’t matter, they should be left to rescue themselves.
Only a scientist as talented as Dr. Mann could look at the evidence and decide that it was hypoxia that caused Mallory to fall as opposed to the darkness, wind, slippery rocks or something else. My Biology degree from PSU has been rendered useless by him. I can only add that a banana peel can also cause one to fall, and is very much funnier.
Gail Combs August 2, 2010 at 8:40 am
Gail, I feel the urge to ask you for a date.
Geoffrey Archer wrote a book about their exploits on Everest. Until I saw this post, I assumed it was fiction and that Mallory was a stand-in for Hillary.
Simply amazing !
I wonder what the possibilities are that maybe the loss of the Scott Antarctic Explorers could have been related to extreme weather.
Nah ! that would be too much of a coincidence; wouldn’t it ?
Severian says:
August 2, 2010 at 8:43 am
It seems that you are somewhat disingenuously “cooking the books” re Nanook. I do not know where you acquired your story about the actors in the film, but you are not right.
“In 1923, one year after Nanook was released, Allakariallak starved while hunting on the tundra, built a snow house, and crawled inside to die.”
“look again at Nanook’s sweet sleeping family, at the radiant wife Nyla, played by a young Ungava Inuk named Maggie Nujuarluktuk. She was five months pregnant when Robert Flaherty left Inukjuak with his footage, and on Christmas Day, 1921, she gave birth to his son, Josephie Flaherty, a residual of Flaherty’s triumphant Arctic sojourn never acknowledged in his lifetime.”
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.11-books-walrus-reads-Marian-Botsford-Fraser/
Western influences were not good to the Inuit.
“By the early 1950s, Robert Flaherty’s son Josephie and the community of Inukjuak in which he lived were utterly dependent upon the qalunaat, the white man. Instead of hunting for food, the Inuit mostly hunted for white fox and were paid in Hudson’s Bay store credits. Their settlements were no longer nomadic and farflung, but close to white communities, which by this time consisted of fur traders and factories, an rcmp constable, a nurse, a teacher, and staff for the joint US/Canada meteorological and radiosonde stations; Josephie was the chore boy for the radiosonde station. Missionaries and priests and senior bureaucrats came through regularly on the supply ship C. D. Howe. This proximity brought changes in living habits and diet, greater exposure to diseases like polio and tuberculosis, and a reliance on welfare in years when the price for furs was low or food sources were threatened. The Inuit had fallen under the purview of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. They were known individually only by numbers until 1960 (Josephie was simply e9701) and were referred to collectively as the Eskimo Problem.”
But hey, why spoil a good story with the facts? Bit like AGW, doncha think?
Ref – Garry says:
August 2, 2010 at 8:16 am
…”To connect the deaths of Mallory and Irvine to “the weather” is just silly.”
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I dunno, I kind of liked what he said and the image he painted. I’d like to suggest that we keep looking and reassessing the facts every 80 years or so and, until someone proves otherwise, this story is a winner in my book.
Let’s hope Bollywood buys this one, Hollywood would probably rewrite the whole thing and sign Angelina Jolly to play the lead.
David Hagen said at 9:14 am:
“Gary does not appreciate how severe an 18 mbar drop, when ‘a drop of pressure of 4 mbar at the summit is sufficient to drive individuals into a hypoxic state’. ”
Yeah, I get it, but I don’t think anyone can confidently assert that there was any kind of deadly “drop in pressure” effect on Mallory & Irvine. There are so many deadly hazards in the high-altitude Himalaya that almost anything will kill you. And AMS usually evolves over the course of hours, not minutes. I’ve seen it happen.
Well I have the book on the complete story of the discovery of Mallory’s body; as well as the history of all the British Everest Expeditions of the 1920s campaign.
Mallory’s body was found with a broken rope; and waist injuries to his body likely caused in a fall while roped together.
It is also known that Irvine was not a particularly experienced climber (as to climbing skills). The location of Mallory’s body clearly rules out a fall on the way up from the vicinity of the second step. He was well below that on the ridge; so the fall must have been while coming down; not going up.
Mallory was nobody’s idiot; and as close as he got; it is most unlikely that he would ever have left Irvine and tried to summit by himself in the face of the weather that is already well documented. I don’t think there is much dispute that they fell while coming down. The big question is were they coming down after a successful climb or as a result of the weather. It’s highly unlikely they made it; as much as the Romantics would like to think they did (I’m one).
So did Irvine slip and drag Mallory down too ? Not worth speculating on; they apparently fell while roped together; doesn’t matter who slipped.
A Chinese Expedition claimed to have passed “an English dead” supposedly just sitting up. That body has not been seen since, and Irvine has not been found. Mallory’s body is nowhere near where Irvine’s ice axe was found.
George Lee Mallory was of course the brother of the WW-II RAF Lee Mallory; who favored large assemblages of fighters to pursue the Battle of Britain; a Strategy that likely would have resulted in a different outcome of that Battle.
Air Marshall Dowding took it in the shorts over his conduct of the BOB and his differences with Lee Mallory; much like Churchill did; when it was all over.
Sir Edmund Hillary was apparently not a believer that Mallory and Irvine made it to the top; and is reported to have said that the idea was to make it to the top and return alive. That sounds to me to be not an accurate portrayal of Hillary.
When Mallory was found he had his ice ax with him, it is thought that he accidentally hit himself with it during his fall as he had a possibly fatal head wound consistent with that. He also had a broken rope and signs of a serious rope jerk injury around his waist which indicated that the rope had been pulled on very hard. He was laying face down 300 meters downslope from where Irvine’s ice ax was found.
Interestingly on the ascent Mallory was reputed, by his daughter, to be carrying a photograph of his wife which he said he was going to leave at the summit. It was not present when his clothes were searched.
A fascinating article on Mt. Everest is in National Geographic mag. August 1933 pp. 127-162, “Aerial Conquest of Everest”; many photos of Everest and surrounding mountains from the first flight over the area. They were doing an aerial survey which they successfully completed, so the Royal Geographic Society(one of the sponsers) should still have this very valuable record I would hope.
Anyway the NatGeo article details the severe weather conditions around Everest during the flight even though they had chosen what they thought was the best time of the year for photography. The expedition depended on weather reports collected daily from weather balloons to determine wind speeds (sometimes up to 110 mph) and directions. All this is tangential to the Mallory story as it was several years later, but if anyone has access to the NatGeo DVD set and would like to see of great pics of Everest in 1933, that is where to find them.
“Robert of Ottawa says:
August 2, 2010 at 10:24 am
Gail Combs August 2, 2010 at 8:40 am
Gail, I feel the urge to ask you for a date.”
I suggest, Robert, that you lie down and wait for the urge to pass.