Mount Everest makes terrifying noises at night — and researchers finally know why
The slopes of Mount Everest have welcomed many adrenaline junkies for years as they seek the ultimate thrill—climbing the world’s highest peak. However, reaching the summit is not an easy feat as the mountain holds a lot of surprises. In the Netflix documentary 'Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake,' expedition leader Dave Hahn, who has climbed the mountain more than 10 times, revealed having heard weird, mysterious sounds on the snow-clad slopes.
As per Unilad, he shared, “It's tough to sleep. There is all this anticipation, and you can hear the glacier that you’re sleeping on and that you’re going to climb through. You can hear it popping. You can hear ice and rock crashing down in various places around the valley.” The eerie sounds come from the glacier itself and only happen at night.
In 2017, a joint research team from Nepal and Japan embarked on a mission to study the seismic activity of the Himalayan glaciers. During their week-long expedition, they set up camp on a pristine glacier, untouched by debris. It wasn’t long before they heard strange sounds, as reported by IFL Science. Evgeny Podolskiy, glaciologist at the Arctic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan, who led the research, uncovered a surprise finding—the ice is highly responsive to rapid environmental changes. He said, "We hear this loud boom. We noticed that our glacier is bursting or exploding with cracks at night." Though they couldn’t find the source, the team suspected there was a pattern. Since the sounds appear more often at night, they concluded that it was linked to fluctuations in temperature.
By analyzing seismographic data, the team confirmed that it was caused by the sudden temperature drop at night given the glacier's high altitude. During the day, the scientists could work in t-shirts, but at nightfall, temperatures would drop as low as five degrees Fahrenheit, as reported by Earth. Podolskiy and his team had also ventured into the Nepalese Himalayas to study the seismic activity of the Trakarding-Trambau glaciers. Podolskiy described the experience as amazing, remarking on the mountain's sheer magnificence. However, by nighttime, their sense of awe turned to unease as the glaciers roared.
Their research also highlighted how climate change has affected the mighty Everest. Previously, Rob DeConto, the director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Earth & Sustainability, explained, “We might be reaching these temperature thresholds that we have been talking about for a long time sooner than we were thinking about years ago." As reported by NBC News, he added, “And it may be that the thresholds for some of these processes that can drive really rapid ice loss are lower than we were thinking just a few years ago.”