Atacama: The Driest Desert on Earth 

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Atacama: Rain Shadow Legends...

I lived in Pedro de Valdivia mining camp when I was a kid. The heat was intense, but the air was so dry that the sweat evaporated almost instantly. Winter nights were below freezing, but it was 0 humidity to freeze. Summer nights were pleasant. The place were extremely calm, 0% criminality, so you could safely play in the street or in the desert. I had many friends, a bicycle, a slingshot, an Atari 800XL, a VHS a cat and a turtle. There were even a video club and not one, but two public swimming pools. Everything that a child in the 80's could want.

Bolivia, Chile and Peru all fought a war over this land. The modern importance of potassium nitrate, and guano, cannot be over-stated. Fertilizer. Gunpowder. Then along comes the Haber-Bosch process. Would make a great side project video.

Me: No way in hell im watching a 20 min video about a desert. Also me 20 min later: well here we are

i was there with my wife who is Chilean, the dryest place on the planet and she fell into the only source of water and had to be rescued, it was only a tiny spring. Clumsiest woman ive ever known.

11:02 "5000 kilometres or 3 miles" You sure about that?

"Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter"

I was anticipating you'd mention the periodic phenomenon in Atacama Desert known locally as desierto florido (flowering desert).

When British people say "geysers," I get a mental image of a bunch of crotchety old men shaking their canes in the air and shouting at people to get off their lawns.

i feel like Simon could make a video about the two biggest cactuses in New Mexico and i would still be excited as i ever was about a new video. he is awesome. 🥰

The driest desert on Earth? My ex's soul.

Antarctica: Finally a worthy opponent.

Geezer Vantage Points? You mean to tell me the Atacama Desert has large, wild herds of elderly people?

The salt flats you mention (the Salar de Uyuni) is NOT located in northern Chile as you claim. It is actually located in southwestern Bolivia. The Atacama desert goes beyond the borders of Chile and Peru and actually includes parts of Bolivia as well.

My wife and I spent a couple of days in the Atacama Desert a few years ago. It really is an amazing and beautiful area. We made it up to 4,300 metres in the Andes -- and, although the sun shone brightly in the thin air, it was very cold! We stayed in San Pedro de Atacama. There are lots of fascinating things to do. We went sand-boarding, but without the boards, as we slid down a very very large sand dune. Well worth a visit.

"elevation higher than five thousand kilometres" I guess the astronomers at ALMA need astronaut training too.

Wow the effect of mountains, wind and water currents directions in creating deserts are immense. Time to recreate my fictional map.

Simon: "Yeah the Atacama desert might be the driest on earth but it's got nothing on BrightCellers where you can get the driest wine delivered directly to your door..." No joke that was a missed sponsorship opportunity.

The only thing the Chilean Coastal Range protects the Atacama from is fog that forms on the ocean side of the range due to a cool ocean current coming straight up from Antarctica. The Atacama is in the Trade Wind Latitudes where winds and systems travel from east to west. Considering that the Argentinian side is already fairly dry (dry pampas) - the winds go over the pampas - get lifted over the high Andes and what little bit of moisture is in these winds gets squeezed out. The result is a bone dry climate on the west side of the Andes that makes the Sahara and Outback look like a Savannah in comparison. In some parts of the Atacama it has not rained in HUNDREDS of years..

i thought you'd also talk about the desert bloom when speaking about tourist attractions, it is one of the most iconic events in the area

Scientists: It's not an alien Narrator (Morgan Freeman): It was an alien

Atacama is such an underrated region. Chile even annexed a portion of the desert from Bolivia in the War of the Pacific.

Chilean here: thank you so, so, sooo much for this video. The Atacama Desert is such an interesting place. I wish it got more attention that it currently does.

Me, a chilean: yep all that is right. Great video!!!! The Chinchorros where a great culture, they made the most ancient human made mummies in history, but at contrary of Ancient Egyptians the mumification process was a right for everyone, all have the right to go in the best conditions to the afterlife. And in the Atacama also exist a wine tourism. I recommend it. Nowadays the most lucrative thing in Atacama is the cupper extraction activity, tourism, wines, and the solar plants that are being made, because in that region we receive more solar radiation than anywhere else in the world. So our government and privates companies are making giants solar plants, like "Cerro Dominador".

linus tech tips: i’m the best at segues simon whistler: hold my squarespace domain

4:59 "Antarctica is not a true desert". Umm, that is incorrect. A location doesn't have to be hot or sandy to be a true desert. The definition of a desert is purely about precipitation levels. And considering the Antarctic Desert has the lowest average precipitation levels on Earth, it definitely qualifies as a desert. Thus, the Atacama is mors accurately called the driest Non-Polar desert. The title of driest desert on Earth actually goes to the Antarctic desert.

"rain shadow" all i could think of was all the business blaze RAID SHADOW LEGENDS jokes. Allegendly.

How about the Namibian Skeleton Coast for another Geographics video? When the Portuguese landed there in the late 1400s-early 1500s, they thought it was an embodiment of hell.

Is Copiapó. The accent on the last O.

I know this sounds crazy, but ever since i heard about this place as a kid I've wanted to go there...

Saw a classic rain shadow environment in the Himalayas. It’s quite the phenomenon.

The SquareSpace segue was moderately cool.

I love falling asleep to your videos...only problem is I watch 5x more videos than I intended before I can no longer keep my eyes open. Thank you

"If you want your idea to seem 'moderately cool'..." haha, best ad transition yet. Kudos on that one Simon.

Thank you for your videos. I really appreciate all your channels after a hard days work.

I rememeber those days on 2015 where it rain, the freaking highschool halls inundated, and se gas no clases for one week

What! A telescope with an elevation of 5000 kilometers!?

I remember reading about this desert in a historical fiction novel called Ínez of my Soul. About the founders of the city Santiago, Chile. Fascinating and horrific details of the near impossible crossing of this desert to expand Spain's rule in South America.

Excellent Research Thank You for sharing

4:12 "The colder water is much less conductive for the creation of rain" - really? I don't think the conductivity of water has much to do with the creation of rain. Perhaps you had meant to say "the colder water is much less conducive for the creation of rain".

This was way more interesting than I expected

Top gear special that took place there was awesome.

I knew the astronomy stuff, but not much of the rest. btw 11:03 it should be 5000 meters not Km.

I'm from California, so the idea of a "Humboldt Current" usually means "Dude, some killer weed is coming in from up north! Hell yeah!"

I cant get enough of this channel

The end of this video sounded like it was promoting tourism to Atacama. Very interesting stuff!

Strange to hear about Copiapo without hearing about the miners.

my family lives in Copiapo and which I have been there many times for months at a time. We get most of our water from springs in the mountains lol

Love your videos. I learn so Mixhz

Legend has it that at one point, Richard Hammond was the smallest living organism in the Atacama.

The mutation explanation on the mummy can be used literally in every scenario where is a weird looking body, just saying .....

Simon's expression when explaining the corpse is NOT an alien is my reaction to UFOers.

Hilarious! Been to all of the other deserts, but the Atacama is the last one on the list. Thanks Simon and crew.

Love your channel/ channels. Been watching top 10s and tifo for quite some time but i never realised they where all owned by you. So many videos for me to binge watch.

Howdy from Utah, I’m actually 25 miles away from the Bonneville Salt Flats right now.

Yay! Another bucket list place.

Speaking of Humboldt current, there's another good Biographics episode. With some crazy anecdotes IIRC.

Sand surfing has been around longer than I have. We used to go into the desert and surf the dunes when I was a little kid. You can use anything from a really expensive board to a well waxed piece of cardboard box.

Did you ever notice that dry (hot) desert regions tended to be the Western side of continents more than the Eastern side (although, of course, there are a few Eastern side hot, dry deserts but not as many). Hot dry deserts can be enhanced (or diminished) by local topography, such as adjacent mountain ranges causing a rain-shadow effect (Atacama Desert) but my theory about why hot dry deserts tend to be on the Western side of continents is this; the general direction of ocean and air currents called a gyre. Gyres are produced by the Earth's rotation called the Coriolis force. In the Northern Hemisphere, the gyres generally rotate clockwise, and in the Southern Hemisphere, they rotate counterclockwise. However, they can seasonally switch direction. For example, the Indian Ocean Gyre (in the Southern Hemisphere) changes direction in the Southern Hemisphere winter & rotates clockwise. The Indian Ocean Gyre there thus tends to pull hot dry air from equatorial ocean regions landwards (clockwise direction) in the Southern Hemisphere winter, and it's opposite effect (anticlockwise direction) in summer drags cooler dry air northwards, thus pulling away clouds forming over land in summer, although coastal cyclones can bring downpours in this season. Both these effects contribute to the hot dry deserts of Western Australia for example. A similar effect (perhaps even stronger, and enhanced by a large tall continuous mountain chain range called the Andes) appears to occur in the South Pacific Gyre on the West coast of South America.This is just a theory, and does not account for hot dry deserts on the Eastern sides of continents, for example the Arabian Desert, but I think I have some factual justification for it.

When I was 18 and well into my 20s I became enchanted by the deserts of my native California (40 years ago). I have lived in the tropical rainforest in Nicaragua for years but I still love wandering the desert ... No cell signals for hundreds of miles ... 130 degree heat. Camping almost anywhere off the road in complete privacy under a sky packed with stars. I may die down here in the jungle or I will spend my last decade or two living in very extreme low desert. Sadly not in California but somewhere in southern Nevada because of taxes and assorted insane political realities in my beloved home state.

@2:25 I LOVE the music here! Great choice:)

bro you deserve a more than a million subs and you have top quality videos

FYI, the Uyuni salt flat is in the Bolivian Altiplano, not the Atacama. There is a Salar de Atacama, from which the town San Pedro de Atacama gets its name.

RU-vid algorithm brought me here. It is offering contrarian and opposing videos to what you were previously watching. Yes, I was watching WAP music video.

The best place in the world for star gazing, the dryness makes for optimal viewing, it's the only reason I've always wanted to go here.

Ayyyy WSU representing! Go COUGS! Sidenote: Simon, your keen intuition serves your well. Went sandboarding in Peru's oasis Huacachina. Was an absolute blast! Just remember to bring some close-toed shoes! Ya can't sandboard in flip-flops haha

Good video 👍

Have you done a series or story on the big telescopes of the Atacama specifically? I’d love to see that.

Every time Simon says something about corpses I'm like: DO A COLLAB WITH CAITLIN!!!!!!

After reading the title of this video I can't help but wonder if "Pacific: The Wettest Ocean on Earth" is up next...

Simón You slaughtered the pronuntiation of Copiapó hahahah but i loved how you said it and btw i love your videos greetings from Chile

No trees, no grass, very few people...sounds like paradise to me! :D

That’s twice I’ve heard Simon say conductive when I think he means conducive. Brilliantly entertaining and informative videos though Simon, thank you, often a go to for something edifying.

17:25 Geezers? I think you mean geyser's my guy.

I love watching your channel

You should start a channel where you talk about things that can help people fall asleep, your voice is perfect for it!

Just on this video, I found the music loud. Other than that, thank you for the research, production, and infomation packed in these videos.

Hard to believe you left out any mention of the geoglyphs :(

I did a report on Chile in sixth grade, so I nailed your pop quiz.

Thank you

10:56 Simon: "ALMA ... is a $1.4 BILLION series of telescopes with an elevation higher than 5000 kilometres..." ISS: "Oh man! It's that gigantic telescope again. Time to take a detour!" (For reference, the ISS *only* flies 400 kilometres)

I really want to go here now. I feel like this was an ad this place looks so cool to visit

A marathon around a volcano in the driest desert on earth sounds like my worst nightmare. Just hospitalize me on arrival

Ironically, the first night we stayed in San Pedro de Atacama it rained.

Hi Simon. Any chance of a Biographic on Ian Smith or Cecil Rhodes? A Sideproject on The Victoria Falls Bridge, or Zimbabwe Ruins? or a Geographic on The Victoria Falls, or the two toed Dema tribe? Thanks, love your videos!

You should do a video on Nan Madol. Would make a great Geographic's video

Thanks for teaching me things I didn't know I wanted to know. If you don't know, now you know, Simon.

8:00 Right on time

Sorry, why are the Antarctic valleys not "true deserts"? If we measure a desert as the relative absence of annual precipitation, and the Antarctic valleys don't receive much if any annual precipitation, they are by definition "true deserts".

Smallest desert in the world is in Carcross Yukon, Canada!

I've went back a few years... simon.. your beard.. has evolved!!

Please do one on the "Cueva de los Tayos" and all the claims surrounding the subject.

That "moderately cool" Segway was one of the smoothest ever!

Will you be doin a video about death valley?

How about Oak Island and the mystery of the money pit? Please consider doing one on this subject.

I live in a desert. 81° is great. I see 115-125° in the summer. There are 10 day stretches where it never dips below 100 for a single hour.

All ways kills me when he says geezers lol 😆

Thanks-excellent.Suggest: Geo/Mega, GretMajor League Telescopes

You don’t have to go all the way to the Attacama you can sand board here in New Mexico out at white sands. Just make sure to go in the morning it’s better the sand has a little dew on it.