This Desert’s Become a Psychedelic Wonderland
This Desert’s Become a Psychedelic Wonderland
New York Post
October? ?28?, ?2015
Chile’s Atacama Desert comes alive with a sea of pink blooms. (All photos: EPA/Mario Ruiz)
By Zachary Kussin
Chile’s Atacama Desert, known as one of the planet’s driest places, received a battering dose of rain this March, which caused mudslides, floods, nearly 30 deaths and homelessness.
Despite the tragedies, plus more rains in August, the severe weather has since transformed the desert into a lush landscape of pink-tone mallow flowers — a stunning display of color, not to mention a powerful symbol of rebirth ― which travelers can now visit.
Lovely scenery driving through Atacama desert
The first posse of blossoms cropped up in March and April, autumn for the South American country. Now they’re back for Chile’s springtime.
“The intensity of blooms this year has no precedent,” Daniel Diaz, National Tourism Service director in Atacama, told Spanish news agency EFE. “And the fact that it has happened twice in the same year has never been recorded in the country’s history. We are surprised.”
More:
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/this-deserts-become-a-psychedelic-wonderland-151201868.html
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'Driest Place on Earth' Transforms Into Floral Wonderland Due to Historic Rainfall
By AVIANNE TAN
Oct 29, 2015, 6:53 PM ET
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A general view over a mallow field in the Atacama region north of Santiago de Chile, Oct. 21, 2015.
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The Atacama Desert in Chile, also known as the "driest place on Earth," has been transformed into a lush floral wonderland of with pink flowers due to a historic amount of rainfall this past year.
The beauty, however did not come without its pain.
Unusually heavy rainstorms in March and August caused mudslides and floods, killing 28 people in the country and left thousands of others homeless, international news agency EFE reported.
"The Atacama region was punished, but also blessed by the phenomenon of a flourishing desert, something that happens only after the rains, this time brought about by El Niño and climate change," Daniel Diaz, National Tourism Service director in Atacama, told EFE.
More:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/driest-place-earth-transforms-floral-wonderland-due-historic/story?id=34836986
El Nino covers arid Atacama desert in flowers
30 Oct 2015
Here's a softer side to the disruptive weather phenomenon known as El Nino: an enormous blanket of colorful flowers has carpeted Chile's Atacama desert, the most arid in the world.
The cyclical warming of the central Pacific may be causing droughts and floods in various parts of the world, but in the vast desert of northern Chile it has also caused a vibrant explosion of thousands of species of flowers with an intensity not seen in decades.
Yellows, reds, purples and whites have covered the normally stark landscapes of the Atacama, where temperatures top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) this time of year.
From violet-and-white Chilean bell flowers, or "countryside sighs" (Nolana paradoxa), to red "lion claws" (Bomarea ovallei), to yellow Rhodophiala rhodolirion, they have filled the normally pale desert valleys with rivers of color.
"This year has been particularly special, because the amount of rainfall has made this perhaps the most spectacular of the past 40 or 50 years," said Raul Cespedes, a desert specialist at the University of Atacama.
- Sleeping beauty -
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AFP / Carlos Aguilar
A gigantic mantle of multicolored flowers covers
the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world,
with an intensity not seen in decades, an effect
caused by the El Nino phenomenon, which alters
weather patterns across the Pacific basin
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El Nino, which wreaks havoc on world weather patterns every two to seven years, has hit particularly hard this year, causing unusually heavy rainfall in the world's driest desert.
That has caused dormant flower bulbs and rhizomes -- underground stems that grow horizontally -- to germinate.
"When you think of the desert, you think of total dryness, but there's a latent ecosystem here just waiting for certain conditions to arise," said Cespedes.
The desert flowers are perhaps nature's consolation for what has been a devastating year for Atacama.
They first bloomed in March, after heavy rains that caught the region by surprise and caused massive floods that killed more than 30 people.
They are now blooming for the second time this year, at the outset of the southern hemisphere summer.
More:
http://www.afp.com/en/news/el-nino-covers-arid-atacama-desert-flowers
