Climate Data: Atacama Desert 1955-2010

The Atacama Desert in South America is said to be the driest place on earth. Much of it high in the mountains, there are regions so desolate they look like they could be on the moon.
 

It is possible to have weather stations that are not manned, but it is rare. The inhospitable locations and climate of the Atacama means there is only one weather station that has reported consistently from 1955 to 2010.
 

Because this station is in the Southern Hemisphere, the beginning of the year is Summer. There is no strong trend, with highs and lows bouncing around randomly. The most recent era's median is slightly lower than the 1955-1975 median.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: -0.04° C. 

The Fall temperatures from this station show a steep cooling trend this century after slight warming last century.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: -0.38° C.  

Winter is like Fall, but with a much steeper recent drop.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: -1.47° C. 

The Spring data also shows the recent drop.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: -1.31° C. 

Confidence level of cooling from time interval to time interval: 63%

Confidence level of the trend showing increasing cooling: 88.9%

Average seasonal change in the medians of 1955-1975 to 1999-2010: -0.80° C.

As stated earlier, this is really just the data from a single station, not from an entire region. That said, this station shows a cooling trend over our 56 year only matched by a part of eastern Antarctica in our earlier worldwide survey.

This gives me an idea for way to search the data, looking for completely consistent stations worldwide over the 1955 to 2010 time period and checking the difference in the first era defined by the Consistent Oceanic Nino Intervals (1955 to 1975) and the most recent era (1999 to 2010).

But for now, I will continue to look at certain deserts. Tomorrow, the Sonoran Desert, which straddles the border of the western United States and Mexico.