A climber is seen in front of a glacier on Mount Qomolangma in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, April 26, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Six researchers from Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region have joined a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to arrive at the Qomolangma, also known as Everest, Base Camp to carry out research on the third pole ice sheet.

The six researchers are from the meteorological bureau and universities in Tibet, who will join a 25-man team led by the CAS' Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research,Tibet Business Daily reported on Wednesday.

The survey will last 40 days and cover the base camp at an altitude of 5,200 meters, intermediate camp at 5,800 meters and the East Rongbuk Glacier, according to the report.

The team will take samplings of new snow and snow pits, drill through the ice core of the East Rongbuk Glacier and take samplings from the front of the glacier, to "monitor pollutants in the area to evaluate how human activities had affected the regional environment," Kang Shichang, a member of the team, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Activities in the Qomolangma area are more difficult than others places due to the high altitude and low oxygen level, said Kang, who is also a research fellow at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources at CAS.

Researchers from the autonomous region, by participating in joint investigation and learning from the CAS team, will raise the region's own scientific research level, Wang Junjie, deputy director of the Science and Technology Department of Tibet Autonomous Region, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The ice sheet survey is part of the second comprehensive scientific research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau launched in August 2017,the Xinhua News Agency reported in 2017.

Likely to last five to 10 years, the research is another large-scale survey on the third pole 40 years after the first one was conducted, according to Xinhua. (Global Times)