atacama desert chile weather
The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 1,000-kilometre (600 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest non-polar desert in the world.According to estimates the Atacama Desert proper occupies 105,000 square kilometres (41,000 sq mi), or 128,000 square kilometres (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.eological research suggests that in some sections of the Atacama Desert, such as in today's Chile, hyperaridity has persisted for the last 200 million years (since the Triassic). This desert is so arid, many mountains higher than 6,000 m (20,000 ft) are completely free of glaciers.