Winds blowing climbers into oblivion. Frostbite claiming entire limbs. Hear how Everest’s legendary weather matches reality, using insights from the globally-significant weather station just installed at the summit.

Earlier this year, Tom Matthews, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography and National Geographic Explorer, co-led an expedition team with fellow National Geographic Explorer Baker Perry, Nepali climate scientists, and elite climbing members of the Sherpa community, to install a new weather station at Bishop Rock on Mount Everest. 

This groundbreaking effort completes the most ambitious scientific undertaking ever conducted on Mount Everest which began in 2019 with the installation of five weather stations, including the two highest in the world at the time.

This work is part of the Perpetual Planet Expeditions, a research collaboration between National Geographic and Rolex to study the Earth’s forests, oceans, and mountains.

The data collected on the expedition is invaluable to the study of climate change and key to understanding one of the most complex environments in the world.

A drinks reception will take place in the Somerset Room after this event

About the speaker

Tom was awarded his PhD in glacier-climate interactions by Loughborough University in 2013. He has since held lecturing positions in Maynooth University (Ireland), John Moores University, and Loughborough University. He arrived at King's College London in late 2021.

His research focuses on environments and events that are meteorologically extreme. The former has seen him work extensively in mountain regions, including in the Himalaya where he co-led installation of the highest-altitude weather stations in the world on Mt. Everest. For the latter, Tom has led research on severe extra-tropical cyclones and compound events, but he specialises in extreme humid heat events, including their drivers and projected changes under climate warming.