Snow Falls On the Most Arid Desert On Earth

crackspackle writes "The Atacama desert region, a vast expanse of land stretching 600 miles along the Pacific coast of South America from Peru to Chile, is known as the driest region on earth, receiving only .04 inches (1mm) of rain per year. Many weather stations located in the region have no recorded precipitation during their existence. Sterile from the lack of rainfall, sparsely inhabited, and virtually free from electromagnetic interference, the desert hosts several major astronomical observatories. This other-worldly location is also popular among sci-fi film makers, and is a prominent test site for NASA's planned Mars mission. This week, the Atacama received 32 inches of snow, stranding motorists along the Pan-American highway and other roads, prompting numerous rescues. Footage of the snow is available on the BBC."

Comments

Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

So, there was a worse snowfall recorded there 20 years ago? And the story here is that snowfalls happen every 20 years there?

Did I miss something in the story?

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[afidel]

Yeah, but their average number doesn't make any sense if there was a worse storm 20 years ago. 32" of snow is equivalent to ~3.2" of rain, that's 800x the quoted .04" which would throw off that number by 100% alone.

Oh, and I wonder if there's going to be a spectacular dessert bloom like there was in Death Valley in 2005 or if so long without rain means that there are no viable seeds or spores to take advantage of the moisture.

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[newcastlejon]

"I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there."

McGann made a good Doctor.

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[interkin3tic]

Did I miss something in the story?

Not in the story, but I think you missed the part where geography, geology, and climatology are interesting to some nerds.

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[riverat1]

The Atacama Desert is 600 miles (1,000 km) long and covers over 40,000 square miles in area. I think it's entirely possible that some parts of it got snowed on and other parts have received no precipitation in at least 400 years.

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[maxwell demon]

It never rains in Atacama,
but girl, don't they warn ya,
it snows,
man it snows

Re:Worst Snowfall in 20 years

[Mindcontrolled]

Yeah, them there scientist are positively rolling in cash. Impoverished bankers queue up at the lab doors, groveling to have the occasional nickel thrown at them, so they can buy their starving families another credit default swap paper fir the evening soup.

*Hint*

[Anonymous Coward]

When you add more energy to a large system, you don't just get even warming. Things get mixed. It's like heating up an ice-cream cake. Some parts that were warm will get colder than they were, as other parts melt into them.

It's why the term has changed to climate change instead of just global warming.

Re:*Hint*

[Toonol]

But:

The Atacama Desert region in Chile was coated with its heaviest snow cover in nearly two decades, the BBC reported. An estimated 31.5 inches (80 centimeters) piled up in the normally arid region.

If this snowfall was due to 'more energy' being added to the system, what caused the prior snowfalls? You have to include all data. Everytime you hear some claim about 'worst hurricane season in fifty years', or anything similar, you need to realize that means there was a worse event fifty years ago. By itself, that establishes no trend.

Re:*Hint*

[CPE1704TKS]

*Hint* When someone changes their initial theory from something that can be quantified (ie. "global temperature will increase because of man-made greenhouse gases") to something that can't be quantified ("ie. global temperature will get both hotter and colder in different parts of the world") it means they have realized their initial theory was incorrect and they are scrambling to find another theory.

Basically, if you're telling me that the theory of climate change is now "Some places will get hotter and some places will get colder", then there is nothing that can disprove the theory, since, yes, there will be parts of the world that will get hotter and parts that will get colder. It's a meaningless, nonsensical theory at that point.

That's like saying "Greenhouse gasses will cause more humans to die in some locations, and more humans to be born in other locations." I will always be able to point to some areas of the world where the birth rate has increased, and others where the death rate has increased.

Re:*Hint*

[artor3]

Right, cause if any scientist, ever, anywhere is wrong, then every scientist is wrong forever . Fuck your anti-intellectual bullshit. It's not even worthwhile to debunk your lies because they're so goddamn baseless. Do you even know how much a climatologist makes? Do you know how much Rush Limbaugh makes while filling your head with lies about the aforementioned scientists? Do you know how many orders of magnitude the two salaries are apart?

Stop filling your head with poison, and learn something.

Re:*Hint*

[gum2me]

Wait, so what if someone says in THESE SPECIFIC REGIONS temperatures will go up, while in THESE SPECIFIC REGIONS temperatures will go down. That seems like a disprovable theory, And it seems like an eminently reasonable claim. Now whether that claim can be borne out by the data is a different question.

Re:*Hint*

[TapeCutter]

When you add more energy to a large system, you don't just get even warming. Things get mixed. It's like heating up an ice-cream cake. Some parts that were warm will get colder than they were, as other parts melt into them.

Yep, increased heat means more turbulence, turbulance in the climate is weather.

It's why the term has changed to climate change instead of just global warming.

No, scientists are well aware the two terms have a different meaning, GW is CC in the positive temp direction. It's why the IPCC has had a CC on the end for over 20yrs. CC is actully the older of the two terms (at least back to the 50's), GW was first coined in a scientific paper in the 70's.

As far as changing the terminology for political purposes goes, the only concrete evidence I have of that is when Frank Luntz while working for the Bush administration tried to get people to use the term "Climate Change" exclusively. When it didn't work their plan B was to blame the "terminology change" on "tree-hugging scientists", from what I can tell plan B has worked quite well for them in the US.

Re:*Hint*

[riverat1]

Both Global Warming and Climate Change were terms that were first used in the 1950's or earlier. The Bush II administration preferred Climate Change because it didn't sound as scarey.

Re:*Hint*

[eleuthero]

I think that stating that humans are unequivocally responsible for current climate change is a bit far reaching. We should be promoting healthy stewardship of resources (including the air we breath) for everyone. At the same time, we should be walking around with our eyes open to the presence of significant environmental change over time (from the warm spell under the Romans to the little Ice Age to today, we have significant change going on).

It might be related to human activity and it might not be related to human activity (maybe it's smokestacks and smelting but it might be equally caused by solar activity and methane depletion in the oceans)--but we should be responsible with our resources regardless. I for one am glad to have grey whales make a come back in the Atlantic. At the same time, I think we need to be careful where we put our people if we are going to continue to have severe weather, excessive flooding, etc.

Re:*Hint*

[riverat1]

*Hint* When someone changes their initial theory from something that can be quantified (ie. "global temperature will increase because of man-made greenhouse gases") to something that can't be quantified ("ie. global temperature will get both hotter and colder in different parts of the world") it means they have realized their initial theory was incorrect and they are scrambling to find another theory.

No, it means the theory is improving and the tools are getting better. They don't throw out one theory and substitute another. They fix the current theory by incorporating the new insights gained. Did Einstein completely replace Newton or just show it was a subset of the overall reality? The increase in computer horsepower over the years means they can do more detailed simulations that may uncover regional differences. A typical GCM simulation runs for about a month and as the computers get faster they just add more detail. So those regional differences can be quantified somewhat and it's getting better all the time.

I think your "Some places will get hotter and some places will get colder" would be better stated as "Most places will get hotter and a few places may get colder". That's closer to what actual climate scientists are saying.

Let me be the first to say...

[Quila]

It's global warming's fault!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[ZaphDingbat]

Quite likely, in a region subject to permafrost.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[RichMan]

> It's global warming's fault!

Quite probably. In most really cold places, it is usally to cold to snow as cold air can carry less moisture than warm air.
Back where I grew up we had lots of -20C clear cold days. It was the "warm" days near 0C when it snowed.

Global warming is expected to create much more evaporation from the oceans and lead to more rain. (cf the flooded central US).

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Toonol]

Quite probably. In most really cold places, it is usally to cold to snow as cold air can carry less moisture than warm air. Back where I grew up we had lots of -20C clear cold days. It was the "warm" days near 0C when it snowed.

While that phenomenon certainly exists, it can't be used as a justification for this snowfall. There was a heavier snowfall decades ago, so this snowfall does nothing to establish warming, cooling, change, or static climate. You would have to do an analysis of frequency of snowfalls, etc., before drawing any conclusions about it.

You can draw the conclusion that anybody using this as evidence (a) for, or (b) against, climate change is not going to be somebody you want to take too seriously.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[rahvin112]

You do realize there are probably as many models as there are scientists right? And that your "example" is probably at best two separate and completely independent models?

And you do realize that the point of science is to actually make predictions then improve your prediction ability by monitoring those predictions and adjusting your theory to match physical results?

This isn't religion, they don't know the answer, they can only make predictions then adjust their predictions as more information comes in. This doesn't make it guessing, and it doesn't make it wrong, it just makes it science. That you don't understand how that work doesn't mean anything at all. Maybe you should leave the field to the experts, instead of inserting your baseless opinion into a discussion you can't even comprehend (as it's apparent you don't even know how the scientific method works or what the purpose of science is).

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[riverat1]

If you think they predicted no snow in the 2000's you aren't paying attention. The earliest date I've seen for that in the Mid-Atlantic region is maybe in the 2030's and I have my doubts about that. Somewhere between 2050 and 2100 seems likely to me unless we do something about GHG emissions.

Global Warming is apparently expanding the sub-tropical zones, where most of the worlds great desert's (including the Atacama) are located likely due to Hadley cell expansion. That means the southern US, particularly west of the Gulf of Mexico will experience more drought. Water evaporating off a warmer Gulf into a warmer atmosphere will likely keep the precipitation level up in the Gulf States although they may see bigger storms interspersed with longer dry spells. Other areas will get more rainfall.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[riverat1]

But clouds both reflect sunlight and absorb infrared energy. Have you ever noticed how much warmer it is on a cloudy night than it is on a clear night? That's clouds holding heat in. Near the terminator clouds can even reflect more sunlight down to the Earth. The net effect of clouds appears to be slightly positive for global warming but the error bars stretch from slightly negative to moderately positive.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[arse maker]

This is a complete straw man. Few credible climatologists would say something like this. You can't point to events like this as evidence of climate change. There is not enough data. Even if no snow fell there for all recorded human history, it's not proof or really evidence of anything.

You need far more common events to tease out a change from the background. Once off events are the worst possible examples to use for climate change.

Re:bigger *hint*

[mevets]

Yes, and for most of its history, uninhabited by humans; perhaps due to the climate.

Re:bigger *hint*

[interkin3tic]

But the climate alarmists like to take advantage of people's limited memory and lack of knowledge of history.

Nice! My turn:
Whereas those who want so badly to believe climate change isn't happening prefer to take advantage of people's inability to understand complicated things.

"You mean all those coal power plants and gas guzzlers might be having unintended consequences? Oh no, I'm starting to feel guilty! Wait wait wait... no, it has to be natural because it's happened like this before. If it were unnatural, this thing would have NEVER happened before. Alright, time to start bugging my congressman to spend taxes to make gas cheaper through subsidies."

Isn't it so much fun to paint those on the other side of a disagreement as being stupid and/or evil!?! Ad homenim attacks are -so- much simpler than trying to grapple with tough issues like "is climate change actually occurring." [/sarcasm]

Another hint

[Sycraft-fu]

People like you do nothing to help bolster the argument of man made climate change.

See any time something happens on a weather level that would seem to be against global warming, like an extra cold winter, if they were related shouts of "Climate is not weather! You can't take something that happened with the weather and apply it to climate!" come up in a hurry.

However when something perceived to be out of the ordinary (or something bad) happens then people like you come and say "See! Look! Strange weather, climate change must be real and it must be people causing it!"

This trying to have it both ways is something that makes the argument look flimsy because it is precisely what people like religious zealots do. When something supports their views, they point to it as evidence. When something doesn't, they claim that sort of thing doesn't matter, even if it is the same sort of thing as they were talking about earlier.

So you can't go and shout down weather as not being climate only to then point at weather when it suits your needs.

Also it shows rather profound ignorance of the Earth's climate and weather systems to think that a rare event must somehow be an indication of something wrong.

Please note, none of this is aimed at trying to disprove or prove man made climate change. It is simply pointing out that this is a stupid argument and doesn't help your position at all.

Re:Another hint

[Vancorps]

You are correct about bad arguments but the specifics are wrong. People who say humans are impacting climate change actually predicted that some areas would be colder and some areas would get more snow, the problem is when you look at global temperatures you realize that Europe and Asia were warmer while people were claiming a cold winter in Maryland as proof that there is no climate change.

Additionally, crazy weather is also predicted in the same models so in reality, all of these events are lining up with predictions made about climate change. As others have pointed out, the question isn't whether climate is changing but whether humans can do anything to slow it down or if they should which to me makes a lot of sense. Encouraging people to use resources more efficiently doesn't sound like a bad idea anyway, so the interests of human driven climate change advocates generally line up with good policy anyways.

Additionally when it comes to this specific case, prior to 1970, the region had almost 400 years without precipitation, the climate change models show tremendous change in the makeup of our atmosphere starting in the 50s and peaking in the late 70s as the clean air act and other international efforts started to take effect reversing the trends for a while until the new millenium when Bush's administration repealed many of the environmental regulations that Clinton's administration put in place.

I find it difficult to believe anyone thinks that humans don't impact our environment tremendously. I come from Vermont with family in upstate New York which was plagued with acid rain because of polluted Ohio. At the same time, about 20 years ago you also had huge problems with smog in California among many other places. Lots of small impacts add up, there are even more egregious environment threatening events happening internationally all at the same time and somehow we're not changing any of the Earth's natural cycles?

I think we should change the focus of the conversation to using our resources more efficiently which makes us less dependent on third parties and reduces our impact on the world around us. There's no reason we need to kill an economy, but there's also no reason we have to lay waste to every place we live.

Re:Another hint

[R3d M3rcury]

Outliers are early indicators in any process of discovery.

Agreed. But they, in of themselves, do not create a discovery.

For example, the 9 hottest years on record have occurred in the last ten years. That's a pretty encouraging sign that something is off a bit with the climate. The fact that it snowed someplace for the first time in 20 years is not evidence of climate change. It is a funny weather story. If it snows again next year and the year after, then we're seeing a trend. Until then, equating it with climate change is a bit premature.

The GP is right to a certain degree. All of these occurrences may or may not be evidence of climate change. The problem is that every odd weather thing that happens becomes evidence that something is "wrong." Strong hurricanes? Climate change. Weak hurricanes? Climate change. More hurricanes? Climate change. Less hurricanes? Climate change. More rain? Climate change. Less rain? Climate change. Heavier snow pack? Climate change. Lighter snow pack? Climate change. Hotter than normal? Climate change. Colder than normal? Climate change.

See, for the last millennia, we've had years where it's been hotter than average. We've had years where it's colder than average. We've had years with more hurricanes than average. We've had years with fewer hurricanes than average. We've had years with more snowfall/rainfall than average. We've had years with less snowfall/rainfall than average. That's why it's called an "average." With climate change, what we're seeing is that those years that are hotter than average are more prevalent than years that are colder than average. These are scary statistics.

The problem is, statistics don't work well to convince people. So we try to grab something dramatic--the first snow in some place in 20 years, flooding in the midwest, tornadoes, etc. and equate it to climate change. It's more dramatic that way--video of people digging out under 20 foot snow drifts is far more compelling than a graph showing a radical increase in global temperatures. The problem is, it's not evidence. It's an anecdote. Just like the anecdotes that have existed for millennia. Hell, I've seen pictures from the 1930s of people digging out from under snow drifts. Is that climate change?

Just look at the melted polar ice cap.

Yes, but the polar ice cap didn't melt in a day. It took years. This is a one-time event. Heck, it's not even all that strange--it happened 20 years ago.

Re:Snow Elsewhere Can Be Amusing...

[Penguinisto]

I can vouch for your statement from down here in the US...

Salt Lake City (at least when I lived there) often got 'ordinary' 26-40cm deep storms that rumbled through during the winter. Sometimes, it combined with lake-effect snow (yes it's a desert... now look for that ginormous patch of blue on the map, immediately to the North and West of town) to give you 60-70cm snow with drifts that got damned impressive, especially on the 'benches'. All that said, the main roads were usually cleared by 7am, and the side streets were mostly clear by 8am. The morning routine always included driveway+snow blower, and afternoons meant the occasional tromp up to the roof to dump off any excess snow, so your roof didn't over-stress from the weight.

Contrast that with Portland, OR. The town gets a mere 20cm of snow in late 2008, and suddenly the entire Universe is paralyzed for a week.
(To be fair, up here in PDX it's all about rainfall and the occasional ice storm, so snowplows are a rare item... and not a single human being up here knows how to drive in it. Kinda fun to watch, but lousy to drive amongst).

Not the driest part of the Atacama

[spike hay]

The parts of the Atacama that get less than a millimeter are by the ocean. Counterintuitively, the closer you get to the sea, the drier it is. This snowfall happened in the Dry Andes of Bolivia and Chile, which are very dry, but do receive more regular precip. For example, there are glaciers above 6000m (it basically never gets above freezing there, so it's sublimation balancing precip).

This is a big snowfall, but it's not that bizarre of an event. AGW is happening, but it would be disingenuous to attribute this to climate change.

Re:Isn't

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah in fact I wonder about carbon dioxide in the coldest parts of Antarctica too. Wiki says it melts at -78 degrees C. I recall a weather station I was involved with managing reported -75 one day. I wonder if you get CO2 frost in conditions like that?

Will anything grow ?

[Alain Williams]

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, will spring up when the snow thaws ? -- given that it is considered sterile.