Why is the atacama desert the driest in the world
Atacama: The Driest Desert on Earth
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pop quiz which continent has the driest
desert on earth
there are some compelling choices here
africa's massive sahara region or the
kalahari which is a bit further south
the arabian deserts in west asia or the
gobi
in china or mongolia americans might
point the mojave or the sonoran
straddling the border with mexico
they're all good guesses but they're all
wrong
if you're strictly measuring dry regions
the arctic
and antarctic circles both have hyper
arid points that can rival
anywhere on the planet but if you want
to talk about true desert regions the
driest place in the world is an
overlooked
thousand mile long valley in south
america nestled in between two mountain
ranges near the coast
it's the atacama desert and it's the
driest desert on earth
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the atacama desert is located in
southern peru and northern chile in
terms of sheer size
it's a long strip of land about 1 600
kilometers or a thousand miles long
it's established to occupy about 105 000
square kilometers
it's not quite a coastal desert but it
is extremely close to the pacific ocean
falling in the valley between the andes
mountains to the east and the chilean
coastal range to the west
in southern peru the desert areas even
stretch
beyond the mountain range and to the
coast these parts are
increasingly recognized by the national
geographic society and other reputable
organizations as
part of atacama the dueling mountain
ranges play a huge part not only
in atacama's geography and topography
but also
the reason why it's so dry in the first
place the andes are the longest
continuous range of mountains in the
world running from
venezuela all the way down to the
southern tip of south america
they have huge cultural and historical
significance in south america
particularly with the incan civilization
the chilean coastal range or cordillera
de la costa
is a much more regional chain of smaller
mountains but
one that nonetheless plays an important
role in atacama's infamy
to really understand this desert you
have to first understand the concept
of a rain shadow in climatology a rain
shadow is when a mountain range or even
a particularly tall hill
interferes with the basin's ability to
receive rain imagine a rain cloud that
tries to precipitate
on an area but is blocked by a mountain
peak
one side would receive all of the
precipitation growing
lush vegetation on the wet slope the
other side of the mountain however would
consistently receive very little
rainfall at all
that's exactly the effect of the coastal
range that's west of atacama storms blow
in
from the pacific but they mostly rain on
the coastal side of the mountains the
presence of the andes creates a
double-sided rain shadow that
leaves the region in a permanent state
of dryness
the driest portions of the desert
receive less than one inch
of rain per year which is only one of
the many ways to describe the aridity of
the region
scientists love to study the land and
moisture markers in the region one group
of british scientists approximated that
one riverbed has been dry for more than
a hundred thousand years while another
projected that the presence of evaporite
means
that generally arid conditions in the
region have persisted for the last
200 million years in other words that's
since the triassic period
most scientists agree that it's the
longest continuously arid region on
earth
there's another big reason why the
atacama is so dry and
that's the peru current also known as
the humboldt current
this is a cold current of water that
naturally flows north up the western
coast of south america
whereas most tropical waters have high
temperatures around 25 degrees celsius
the humble's current is more like 15
degrees
this is wonderful for fishing the
humboldt waters are one of the liveliest
areas for commercial fishing in the
world but it also produces
unusual climatological results when it
interacts with typical pacific weather
fronts
the colder water is much less conductive
for the creation of rain
it's much more likely to produce coastal
fog rather than
a boisterous thunderstorm so in short
conditions are rarely right
for a good rain and even when they are a
set of parallel mountains shield the
area from receiving anything
these twin forces aren't the best
explanation for why there are some areas
of the atacama desert
where rainfall has literally never been
recorded there's really only one or two
other places on earth that can compete
with atacama
in terms of dryness and those are the
polar deserts specifically
the dry valleys in antarctica record
zero rainfall and
are whipped so dry from katabatic winds
that there's not even
any snow or ice in the area atacama's
driest points rivaled the
dry valleys near the south pole but
since antarctica is not a true desert
the title belt goes to everyone's
favorite south american dry spot
so yes atacama lives up to the hype in
terms of dryness but its actual
temperature might defy your initial
expectations for a desert
it might be a massively dry desert
that's just
south of the equator but the
temperatures here are much more
mediterranean
than mojave the average summer day
temperature is around 27 degrees celsius
or 81 degrees fahrenheit
and that falls down to 61 degrees at
night in higher elevation portions of
the region the mornings evenings and
lights are
actually moderately cool year-round and
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and let's get back to it
so now that you know atacama is the
driest desert on earth
what if i told you that it's the driest
place in the universe
well okay so that's probably not
actually true but the atacama desert is
a unique enough ecosystem that
it attracts wannabe cosmonauts from
every corner of the earth as many 21st
century scientists have turned their
attention to life on mars the atacama
desert has become
a popular place to simulate martian
terrain the thought process goes
something like this
if human scientists are ever going to
find some semblance of life on
a rugged arid rock like mars then
earth's most parallel climate might
serve as an effective proving ground
scientists from all over the world
particularly north america
flock to chile to study and experiment
in what is generally considered the most
inhospitable portions of the atacama
desert where
annual rainfall is virtually
non-existent most of the time scientists
are looking for any sort of eukaryotic
organism they're looking for microbial
life
at or below the surface and studying
effective ways to detect those organisms
nasa for example has a team
called the atacama rover astrobiology
drilling studies team which is usually
referred to as the
arad's team this group spends one month
camping in the atacama desert every year
testing rover equipment to
look for microbes or other signs of life
it's one way the nasa teams can
test their rovers in a realistic alien
environment without having to launch a 2
billion dollar test robot
to explore a region 58 million miles
away
there are dozens of modern science tales
involving the region here's another in
2018 a team of scientists led by
washington state university researcher
dirk schulz mccook
studied how microbial life has adapted
to life in the atacama desert publishing
their results in a journal
called proceedings of the national
academy of sciences upon the group's
initial visitation to the region in 2015
something started happening it rained
schulz-mchook's research group
happened to arrive at one of the only
recorded times in history where the
atacama received rainfall
the group took careful soil samples
observing the living activity within the
ground
years later they came back during a more
typical period of sustained dryness and
observed a more
dormant period of soil life their data
and observations from the atacama
support
a growing theory about life on mars that
millions of years ago
mars had large lakes and small oceans
where life hypothetically
could have existed since then the
surface climate has become hyper-arid
but it's possible
that some extremely small form of life
still exists
under the surface given the status quo
in the atacama desert
schulz smackhook might have said it best
it has always fascinated me to go to the
places where people don't think anything
could possibly survive
and discover that life has somehow found
a way to make it work
jurassic park references aside our
research tells us that
if life can persist in earth's driest
environment
there is a good chance that it could be
hanging in there on mars
in a similar fashion but atacama isn't
only popular with scientists who
are looking to simulate martian terrain
atacama is a very popular side for
astronomical observations too and it's
easy to understand
why when you consider the region it's in
between two mountain ranges which
means there are plenty of opportunities
to build at high altitude the air is dry
and there is generally no cloud cover
there's not much light pollution or
radio interference because
civilization and human impact on the
immediate surrounding land is severely
limited
if you want to gaze out into the abyss
of space there aren't five
better places on earth atacama is
heavily utilized by the european
southern observatory group which has
three major observatories in the area
blessia
paranal and llano dahinator observatory
the latter in particular is a very
significant facility in part because it
hosts the alma international radio
observatory
in 2011 an international coalition of
several factions
including the u.s canada japan europe
and chile teamed up to build a powerful
radio astronomy telescope at
this location which is located on a high
plateau in the atacama desert
alma which stands for atacama large
millimeter array is a 1.4 billion dollar
series of telescopes with an elevation
higher than 5 000 kilometers or 3 miles
alna was a key participant in the event
horizon project that successfully
captured and published the
first ever pictures of a black hole in
2019
there's yet another reason why
scientists love atacama
mummies obviously egypt gets most of the
publicity when talking about preserved
human corpses but
atacama is a sneaky good place for
anthropologists archaeologists and all
kinds of other
wicked smartologists who find preserved
corpses
in ancient egypt mummification and
embalming were just a part of the
culture
society believed that the body had to be
preserved for a soul to
pass on to the correct afterlife so
egyptians developed a keen understanding
of how to
halt a human corpse from entering its
normal decomposition process they would
remove organs chemically treat corpses
and do all other kinds of stuff in order
to preserve the integrity of the body
because
under normal conditions a body will
invariably rot
however we all know that atacama is
special and it's utter lack of humidity
and moisture means that in some cases
corpses
never ever rot they're naturally
mummified this makes atacama a great
place to find perfectly preserved bodies
this phenomenon was most recently in the
news in 2018 a tiny mummified skeleton
had been discovered in the chilean
portion of the atacama desert and
a growing number of locals reddit users
and area 51 chasers believed the
skeleton to be that of an alien
thanks in part to a 2013
extraterrestrial documentary that
references the atacama desert as
potentially proof of alien life
in their defense i mean it does look
pretty weird
and if a martian actually did come to
earth it would make sense that its
remains were discovered in the one place
that
people literally use as a fake martian
landscape
but it wasn't an alien it was just a
perfectly preserved skeleton with traces
of european heritage suggesting that
she lived within the last 500 years but
it was only in 2018 that scientists
confirmed the remains featured human dna
the genetic material also provided an
explanation for why the corpse seemed so
alien in the first place
when she was alive this particular human
had a highly unusual combination of
mutations that
altered her bone development giving her
fewer ribs enlarged eye sockets and
a long pointy skull atacama has long
been home to mummified corpses thanks to
natural and artificial processes
scientists have discovered naturally
mummified atacama corpses that date back
to 7000 bce the chinchoro people an
ancient group who inhabited southern
peru and northern chile also developed
cultural mummification practices similar
to the egyptians the
first artificial chinchiro mummy dates
to 5000 bc or 2 millennia before the
first known egyptian mummy mummies
aliens nasa
camping trips astronomy towers atacama
might be the driest desert in the world
but it sounds like an
awesomely unconventional tourist
attraction but who would want to fly
into a desert death trap like this
well as it turns out a whole lot of
people
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the forces of globalization have been a
boon for the handful of local economies
that do exist in the atacama region the
popularization of eco-tourism in the
late 20th century dramatically increased
consumer interest in a region that
historically speaking
had struggled to support life of any
kind prior to the 1900s atacama was
sparsely settled but it did have one
major economic advantage
mining the twin mountain ranges and
relatively undisturbed landscape
made atacama the best place to mine
potassium nitrate anywhere in the world
potassium nitrate sometimes referred to
as saltpeter is used in a lot of
products as a chemical reagent even
today
historically though it's best known as a
gunpowder oxidizer which meant atacama
was a particularly valuable place to set
up camp and
mine raw materials various mining camps
thrived throughout the region
for generations all the way up until the
development of synthetic nitrates in the
early 20th century
which obsoleted a lot of mining
operations today the desert is littered
with
abandoned remains of more than 150 small
mining camp towns
even though they're ghost towns today
the presence of these mining camps
helped develop the small bits of desert
culture that have
sprung up along the outskirts of the
driest place in the world
in modern times mining operations aren't
as lucrative but there
are still a handful of towns in the area
kopiyapo for instance
is the capital of the atacama region
which is one of the most sparsely
populated of
chile's 16 primary administrative
divisions kopiapo shares a name with an
adjacent valley and a river
actually to be more precise it shares a
name with an adjacent valley and river
bed the river is completely dry now in
part because of the effects of climate
change but mostly just because coppeappo
receives about half an inch of average
annual rainfall
and remember this isn't a neatly
distributed half inch more like a bad
two-inch storm every
four to five years with unbearable
stretches of dry weather in between
in recent years copiapo has struggled
with water scarcity because
the town's series of wells have run dry
the regional water utility drilled six
new wells 180 meters deep
hoping to find new access to the water
table the results have been mixed the
access to water has been greater but at
those depths and at that proximity to
the pacific ocean the water is often
laced with salt and other minerals water
purification tools
are common household necessities for
many local families
still copiapo is a growing town the
population was just north of 10 000 in
1907.
barely a hundred years later it was
pushing 160 000
that's because as dozens and dozens of
phosphate mining towns folded throughout
atacama
capiapo was well positioned with a
broader local operation that focused on
copper and silver
now as tourism interest in the area has
exploded capiapo's economy is more
diversified
an increased hotel presence supports
both chilean and international visitors
who come to explore incan ruins desert
mysteries and
even a brand new casino another area
that's even more popular with tourists
is the small oasis town of san pedro de
atacama this isn't
a bustling locale like kopiapo the town
sits high up on a plateau with a local
population of less than 5000 people
and its modern economy is primarily
driven by international tourism
visitors to saint pedro d'atacama often
need a brief acclamation period upon
arrival because of its altitude this is
a village high up in the andes mountain
at 2 400 metres 7 900 feet it's higher
than mexico city
and more than 1.5 times higher than
denver colorado
the air up there is very thin once
visitors are acclimated though there are
tons of potential activities
amateur astronomy museum tours abandoned
mine shaft tours indigenous crafting
lessons
geezers vantage points and dozens of
hiking trails if you're looking for a
good instagram opportunity atacama has
some
genuinely unique opportunities here
including
wait for it sand boarding and you cannot
tell me that this doesn't look cool
if you're looking for more
unconventional transportation activities
in the desert you can always check out
the all-terrain motor races that take
place out in the desert
have you heard of the bonneville salt
flats in the western united states well
their southern cousin is the uni salt
flats here in atacama which are the
largest salt flats in the world
both of them have seen plenty of
all-terrain auto racing though we
imagine
it's probably an easier trip to utah or
nevada with
your souped-up desert speed racer than
it is all the way down
to northern chile oh let's not leave out
the atacama race that's the volcano
marathon which is a quick 26 mile
jaunt on mostly dirt roads around the
lascar volcano and it's not just an
active volcano it's the most active
volcano in the andes central volcanic
zone but whether you're racing lava from
an active volcano searching for a new
vein of silver or
uncovering a fresh mummy hidden away by
centuries of sand dunes
atacama is a unique location that's
growing in popularity as an
international destination for a reason
there really is no place on this planet
quite like it and
the power of globalization is pulling
more and more tourists towards
an ultra-dry landscape with unique
cultural sceneries
you can keep buying plane tickets to
some marco square and the statue of
liberty if you like
there's a reason the eiffel tower is a
popular attraction but if you're looking
for something that's a little more off
the grid the atacama desert
is definitely out of this world so i
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