|
PAGES Chile
Welcome to PAGES Chile
|
Fig.1 Northern Patagonian ice-fields (47ºS), Chile.
|
Fig.2 Salar de Surire (19ºS), Chilean Altiplano.
|
Chile is a country characterized by a wide latitudinal range (18-56ºS), which is reflected in a large number of different ecosystems and geographical features, such as mountains and volcanoes up to almost 6000 m a.s.l. and marine depths down to 7800 m.
In the territory of Chile, several types of climates are present, including one of the driest deserts worldwide and one of the more rainy extratropical sites, with annual precipitation records up to 8000 mm in the southern part of Chile. There are three main climatic features that determine this gradient along Chile: the Alisios belt-winds, which bring precipitation storms to the northern Altiplano plateau; the westerly belt-winds, which bring precipitation events to the southern part of Chile; and the subtropical south-eastern pacific anticyclone, which interacts with the westerly belt-winds system and determines the Mediterranean climate in subtropical Chile. Together with these three climatic features, the interaction between the cold Humboldt Stream and the presence of the Andes Cordillera, influences climatic characteristics such as the hyper-aridity of the Atacama Desert. Additionally, almost all the Chilean territory is affected in different ways by ENSO events.
All these climatic features make the southern border of the Alisios wind system, and most of the westerly belt-winds system interacting with the subtropical south-eastern pacific anticyclone suited to paleoclimate research.
From a biological perspective, the great endemism of plant and animal species is due to geographical isolation resulting from the high elevations of the Andes Cordillera, which act as a climatic barrier both in the south-east and north-east of the country. This produces, for example, rainforest in the south separated from the north by the semi-arid South American Diagonal Arida zone.
The paleoclimate-related research focus in Chile is on glacial geology, sedimentology, oceanography, palynology and dendrochronology. The main research themes include the last glacial period and the Holocene transition in southern Chile at 41ºS, and the current southern Patagonic warming.
|
