REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA—Spain and Greece are holiday destinations for Britons who want to escape the summer heat in their countries. Summer in England is often unpredictable and disappointing. However, for those who are looking for the sun, it turns out Chili is the best place to visit.
Scientists reveal that the desert near the Andes is officially the hottest place on Earth. Its intensity is such that if you were standing on the Chajnantor Plateau, you would receive as much ultraviolet (UV) radiation as on the Planet Venus.
Analysis led by the University of Santiago revealed that the site in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, which is more than 15,700 feet (4,800 m) above sea level, is the sunniest and hottest place on Earth because it has the least cloudy conditions. This means that these plains experience very little rain.
However, this location is definitely not a great place for sunbathing. Average temperatures are often 4 degrees Celsius higher during summer, partly because the adjacent Pacific Ocean receives water currents from Antarctica. And an average SPF of 20 doesn’t help protect against sunburn, as scientists say conditions are so extreme it hasn’t never seen anywhere else on Earth. “This is actually the radiation you would receive in the summer if you were standing on Venus,” study author Raul Cordero told Washington Postquoted from page Daily MailFriday (28/7/2023).
In this particular location, people know that the solar radiation is very high. Now, the study shows with certainty just how high the radiation is. In their study, the scientists published a five-year dataset recorded at an observatory on the northwestern border of the Chajnantor Plateau, 17,700 feet (5,418 m) above sea level.
The plateau was found to have not only the highest levels of horizontal shortwave radiation in the world, but also several other interesting features. Apparently, a phenomenon known as forward scattering visible among nearby clouds that often trigger intense bursts of sunlight. Above elsewhere on Earth, clouds are often “thick” enough to block most of the sunlight from reaching the ground, which is instead reflected back into space.
This mechanism protects us from the sun’s harmful rays, even preventing permafrost from melting too quickly in some parts of the world. However, the Chajnantor Plateau often experiences “thin” clouds which allow the sun to be focused intensely at ground level.
Believe it or not, solar radiation during these wispy cloud periods can actually be worse than cloudless conditions. These wispy clouds, often appear during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer in January and February, but are also prevalent in other areas such as the Himalayan Highlands.
Even so, this process is possible Chilean desert experience solar extremes that are “unparalleled in the whole world”. As a result, the study authors believe the highlands could become a prime spot for future solar power plants, harvesting sunlight to generate electricity.
The area may even be used as a life simulator on Venus in the future. Venus’s ozone layer is 62 miles above the planet’s surface with 2601.3 W m−2 of solar radiation compared to 308 W m−2 at high altitudes. However, unlike the highlands, temperatures there often exceed (470 degrees Celsius) due to the sheer volume of atmospheric carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds. This thick atmosphere traps the sun’s heat, which makes Venus the hottest planet in the solar system.
2023-07-28 10:35:47
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