Ask Me EverythingP

Monsoon

maker

the summer, the H Tibetan plateau warms up, heating the air above. The air rises, drawing in the warm, moist air from the Indian Ocean that causes the torrential rain of the summer monsoon in India.

High tea

The air is thin at high altitude because there is less weight of air above to squeeze it together. This reduced atmospheric pressure also allows water to boil at a lower temperaturę, so Tibetans routinely drink their tea while it is still boiling. Don’t try this at home!

Thin air

01:

As you climb higher, the air gets thinner, so every lungful of air that you breathe contains fewer molecules of vital oxygen.

02:

As the moist air is drawn ■ north over India, it meets the rock wali of the Himalayas.

It spills the rest of its rain on the south side of the mountains, creating lush forests and great rivers such as the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra.

RECORD

breaker

On Himalayan peaks above 23,000 ft (7,000 m), there is less than half the usual amount of oxygen measured at sea level.

The air that reaches I the north side of the mountains in the summer has lost all its moisture, so the Tibetan plateau gets little rain. It is just as dry in the winter, when sinking cold air stops clouds from forming; it means that the region is a near-desert

Messnpra '!?'!?ⁿ W Messner and Ausfrian Peter

_ _^a^^e[^et were the first

*nountajneers to climb

^MObott,er^S,Withou'^u^₉

Dottled oxygen__a feat ^a

thought impossible.

The highest mountains in the Himalayas are also the highest in the world. They include famed peaks such as Mount Everest and K2 as well as others like Dhaulagiri, which, for the first decades of the 1800s, was believed to be the world’s tallest mountain.

Makalu

27,838 ft (8,485 m)

Cho Oyu

26,864 ft (8,188 m)

Dhaulagiri

26,795 ft (8,167 m)

Manaslu

26,781 ft (8,163 m)

03:

05:

Even on the Tibetan plateau, there is only 60 percent of the oxygen at sea level.

Despite this, almost three million people live on its dry grasslands. Their bodies have adapted to the thin air. In particular, their blood has morę red cells to absorb oxygen.

Others gasp for breath and suffer altitude sickness, which forces most climbers to use breathing eguipment.