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Atacama Desert

• The Atacama Desert is a 600-mile-long (1,000-kilometer) plateau in the north of Chile, near the borders of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina in South America.
• It is wedged between the coastal Cordillera de la Costa mountain range and the Andes Mountains.
• It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, as well as the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar desert.
• It is almost without vegetation, except along slopes moistened by drizzle during the winter or in mesic valleys (moderate supply of moisture) that bisect the otherwise xeric (dry) desert.
• The Atacama Desert contains the world’s largest supply of sodium nitrate.

Why is the Atacama desert dry?

• Rain shadow effect of the Andes.
• Off-shore trade winds & westerlies that blow far to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn (dry subsid-
• ence caused by the South Pacific high-pressure cell).
• Cold ocean currents: Cold Humboldt current & upwelling of cold water due to Walker Circulation.
• The most arid region is situated between the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range (two-sided rain shadow).

Credit: BBC