Snow Falls On the Most Arid Desert On Earth 195
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."
*Hint* (Score:2, Informative)
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* (Score:2, Informative)
*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.
Not the driest part of the Atacama (Score:5, Informative)
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:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Informative)
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.