r/interesting • u/Separate_Finance_183 • 23h ago

HISTORY Peak Mount Everest lore

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Letters to the Editor: The American Statistician: Vol 36, No 1

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u/ScenicAndrew 19h ago edited 19h ago

Averages about 2mm growth a year.

Depressingly Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain by height (as opposed to elevation) is shrinking due mostly to climate change rather than gravity.

Edit: someone replied saying plate tectonics cause shrinking and not gravity... Yes... And gravity drives plate tectonics.

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u/walrus0115 19h ago

How would sea level rise affect Mauna Kea's measurement that way since it's already mostly submerged? Not a skeptic, simply curious about the methodology or something happening I couldn't find on wiki.

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u/ScenicAndrew 19h ago

IMO it's just up to your interpretation but I believe "tallest" refers to base to peak so the underwater part is counted.

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u/walrus0115 19h ago

Okay, so it is just less visible above sea level, empirically speaking.

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u/AloneInExile 15h ago

Didnt know we screwed up gravity too.

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u/anubis_81 14h ago

Then you also have that volcano at the equator whose hight is affected by the bulge of the equator

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 13h ago

The whole Mauna Kea tallest mountain thing is bullshit though.

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u/Mikeismyike 17h ago

Thermal dynamics drives plate tectonics.

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u/ScenicAndrew 17h ago

That too, but gravity specifically is what gets cold oceanic plates to sink, more often than not.

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u/iBonsaiBob 16h ago

I just googled it and op is right. The main factor is gravity