Learning something new today
So I'm watching History International Channel this morning...and this is what I learned.
The Atacama Desert is located in northern Chile and reaches a small part of southern Peru, climbing up to 10,670 ft altitude on an area of 72,500 square mi. It is a narrow stretch between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains over a distance of 600 mi on either side of the Tropic of Capricorn.
A high pressure cell over the Pacific keep back moisture from the west, while the mountains block clouds formed in the Amazon Basin from the east. On the coast, the cold water Peru Current coming from Antarctica chills the desert air, further inhibiting the rain clouds.
The average annual rainfall is about one inch 25 mm and in some mid-deserts spots, rain has never been recorded, at least as long as humans have measured it. There is one place where they've measured it at .03 inches per year---so in a decade you might get enough to fill a coffee cup.
Not even cacti grow there. The air is so dry that metal objects never oxidize and the meat left for long on open air preserves for unlimited time. Without moisture nothing rots. Better than refrigeration...sort of. Not sure you'd be able to eat it---thinking it would be seriously tough. Like trying to chew leather.
It is so arid, that mountains that reach as high as 22,590 feet lack glaciers and no sign of snow. , in the southern part, it could have been glacier-free throughout the Ice Age.
Near the sea a dense fog called camanchaca flows thick. When the stable high-pressure cell offshore traps cool ocean air against the hillsides, the air condenses into low-lying clouds, the camanchaca.
The chamanchaca is not wet enough to produce rainfall but does provide for an opportunistic ecosystem high above the shore: moss-covered cacti, shrubs, certain rodents and foxes. They've found some micro-organisms....algea and the like living inside rocks.
No matter how harsh the environment, life is making a place for itself. :-)
The Atacama Desert is located in northern Chile and reaches a small part of southern Peru, climbing up to 10,670 ft altitude on an area of 72,500 square mi. It is a narrow stretch between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains over a distance of 600 mi on either side of the Tropic of Capricorn.
A high pressure cell over the Pacific keep back moisture from the west, while the mountains block clouds formed in the Amazon Basin from the east. On the coast, the cold water Peru Current coming from Antarctica chills the desert air, further inhibiting the rain clouds.
The average annual rainfall is about one inch 25 mm and in some mid-deserts spots, rain has never been recorded, at least as long as humans have measured it. There is one place where they've measured it at .03 inches per year---so in a decade you might get enough to fill a coffee cup.
Not even cacti grow there. The air is so dry that metal objects never oxidize and the meat left for long on open air preserves for unlimited time. Without moisture nothing rots. Better than refrigeration...sort of. Not sure you'd be able to eat it---thinking it would be seriously tough. Like trying to chew leather.
It is so arid, that mountains that reach as high as 22,590 feet lack glaciers and no sign of snow. , in the southern part, it could have been glacier-free throughout the Ice Age.
Near the sea a dense fog called camanchaca flows thick. When the stable high-pressure cell offshore traps cool ocean air against the hillsides, the air condenses into low-lying clouds, the camanchaca.
The chamanchaca is not wet enough to produce rainfall but does provide for an opportunistic ecosystem high above the shore: moss-covered cacti, shrubs, certain rodents and foxes. They've found some micro-organisms....algea and the like living inside rocks.
No matter how harsh the environment, life is making a place for itself. :-)