Humboldt Current

La Silla is in the Southern outskirts of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, it may come as a surprise to see cloud formations result of the Humboldt Current.

Cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north along the western coast of South America.

- Humboldt Current

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The main ocean currents involved with the North Pacific Gyre

Boundary current

Boundary currents are ocean currents with dynamics determined by the presence of a coastline, and fall into two distinct categories: western boundary currents and eastern boundary currents.

Subtropical eastern boundary currents flow equatorward, transporting cold water from higher latitudes to lower latitudes; examples include the Benguela Current, the Canary Current, the Humboldt (Peru) Current, and the California Current.

Southern Oscillation Index timeseries 1876–2017.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics.

Southern Oscillation Index correlated with mean sea level pressure.

Diagram of the quasi-equilibrium and La Niña phase of the Southern Oscillation. The Walker circulation is seen at the surface as easterly trade winds which move water and air warmed by the sun towards the west. The western side of the equatorial Pacific is characterized by warm, wet low pressure weather as the collected moisture is dumped in the form of typhoons and thunderstorms. The ocean is some 60 cm higher in the western Pacific as the result of this motion. The water and air are returned to the east. Both are now much cooler, and the air is much drier. An El Niño episode is characterised by a breakdown of this water and air cycle, resulting in relatively warm water and moist air in the eastern Pacific.

The various "Niño regions" where sea surface temperatures are monitored to determine the current ENSO phase (warm or cold)

The 1997 El Niño observed by TOPEX/Poseidon

The regions where the air pressure are measured and compared to generate the Southern Oscillation Index

A Hovmöller diagram of the 5-day running mean of outgoing longwave radiation showing the MJO. Time increases from top to bottom in the figure, so contours that are oriented from upper-left to lower-right represent movement from west to east.

Colored bars show how El Niño years (red, regional warming) and La Niña years (blue, regional cooling) relate to overall global warming.

Normally the northward flowing Humboldt Current brings relatively cold water from the Southern Ocean northwards along South America's west coast to the tropics, where it is enhanced by up-welling taking place along the coast of Peru.

Atacama Desert

Desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains.

Snow in Paranal Observatory at 2,600 masl

A flat area of the Atacama Desert between Antofagasta and Taltal

The lack of humidity, rain, and light pollution together produce a dusty, rocky landscape.

Rare rainfall events cause the flowering desert phenomenon in the southern Atacama Desert.

Vegetation in Pan de Azúcar National Park on the coast of the Atacama Desert

Liolaemus nitidus, a lizard native to the southern reaches of the Atacama Desert

View of Chuquicamata, a large, state-owned copper mine

View of a forest in Pampa del Tamarugal from Chile Route 5. These forests were once devastated by the demand of firewood associated with saltpeter mining.

Tara Cathedrals (left) and Tara salt flat

Valle de la Luna, near San Pedro de Atacama

Salt evaporation ponds in the Atacama Desert

Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes, home to the ESO/NAOJ/NRAO ALMA

The Milky Way streaking across the skies above the Chilean Atacama Desert

The desert owes its extreme aridity to a constant temperature inversion due to the cool north-flowing Humboldt ocean current and to the presence of the strong Pacific anticyclone.

Ocean current

Continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences.

The bathymetry of the Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean governs the course of the Kerguelen deep western boundary current, part of the global network of ocean currents.

Coupling data collected by NASA/JPL by several different satellite-borne sensors, researchers have been able to "break through" the ocean's surface to detect "Meddies" – super-salty warm-water eddies that originate in the Mediterranean Sea and then sink more than a half-mile underwater in the Atlantic Ocean. The Meddies are shown in red in this scientific figure.

A 1943 map of the world's ocean currents

Another example is Lima, Peru, where the climate is cooler, being sub-tropical, than the tropical latitudes in which the area is located, due to the effect of the Humboldt Current.

The sooty tern is highly aerial and marine and will spend months flying at sea, returning to land only for breeding.

Seabird

Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment.

Cormorants, like this double-crested cormorant, have plumage that is partly wettable. This functional adaptation balances the competing requirement for thermoregulation against that of the need to reduce buoyancy.

Wilson's storm petrels pattering on the water's surface

An African penguin skeleton, showing the sternal keel that makes the species a strong diver and swimmer

Northern gannet pair "billing" during courtship; like all seabirds except the phalaropes they maintain a pair bond throughout the breeding season.

Common murres breed on densely packed colonies on offshore rocks, islands and cliffs.

Seabirds (mostly northern fulmars) flocking at a long-lining vessel

This crested auklet was oiled in Alaska during the spill of MV Selendang Ayu in 2004.

Depiction of a pelican with chicks on a stained glass window, Saint Mark's Church, Gillingham, Kent

The population of elegant terns, which nest off Baja California, splits after the breeding season with some birds travelling north to the Central Coast of California and some travelling as far south as Peru and Chile to feed in the Humboldt Current.

A school of large pelagic predator fish (bluefin trevally) sizing up a school of small pelagic prey fish (anchovies)

Pelagic fish

Pelagic fish live in the pelagic zone of ocean or lake waters – being neither close to the bottom nor near the shore – in contrast with demersal fish that do live on or near the bottom, and reef fish that are associated with coral reefs.

Herring reflectors are nearly vertical for camouflage from the side

Oceanic fish inhabit the oceanic zone, which is the deep open water which lies beyond the continental shelves

Scale diagram of the layers of the pelagic zone

Most mesopelagic fishes are small filter feeders that ascend at night to feed in the nutrient rich waters of the epipelagic zone. During the day, they return to the dark, cold, oxygen-deficient waters of the mesopelagic where they are relatively safe from predators. Lanternfish account for as much as 65% of all deep sea fish biomass and are largely responsible for the deep scattering layer of the world's oceans.

Most of the rest of the mesopelagic fishes are ambush predators, such as this sabertooth fish. The sabertooth uses its telescopic, upward-pointing eyes to pick out prey silhouetted against the gloom above. Their recurved teeth prevent a captured fish from backing out.

The humpback anglerfish is a bathypelagic ambush predator, which attracts prey with a bioluminescent lure. It can ingest prey larger than itself, which it swallows with an inrush of water when it opens its mouth.

Many bristlemouth species, such as the "spark anglemouth" above, are also bathypelagic ambush predators that can swallow prey larger than themselves. They are among the most abundant of all vertebrate families.

Young, red flabby whalefish make nightly vertical migrations into the lower mesopelagic zone to feed on copepods. When males mature into adults, they develop a massive liver and then their jaws fuse shut. They no longer eat, but continue to metabolise the energy stored in their liver.

Giant grenadier, an elongate benthic fish with large eyes and well-developed lateral lines

Cross-section of an ocean basin, note significant vertical exaggeration

Shortfin mako shark make long seasonal migrations. They appear to follow temperature gradients, and have been recorded travelling more than 4,500 km in one year.

The huge ocean sunfish, a true resident of the ocean epipelagic zone, sometimes drifts with the current, eating jellyfish

The giant whale shark, another resident of the ocean epipelagic zone, filter feeds on plankton, and periodically dives deep into the mesopelagic zone

Lanternfish are partial residents of the ocean epipelagic zone, during the day they hide in deep waters, but at night they migrate up to surface waters to feed

The Antarctic toothfish have large, upward looking eyes, adapted to detecting the silhouettes of prey fish.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus=Dissostichus|species=mawsoni|year=2009|month=August}}</ref>

The Barreleye has barrel-shaped, tubular eyes that generally are directed upward, but may be swivelled forward.<ref>Mystery Of Deep-sea Fish With Tubular Eyes And Transparent Head Solved ScienceDaily, 24 February 2009.</ref>

$The stoplight loosejaw has a lower jaw one-quarter as long as its body. The jaw has no floor and is attached only by a hinge and a modified tongue bone. Large fang-like teeth in the front are followed by many small barbed teeth.<ref name="kenaley">{{cite journal|author=Kenaley, C.P|title=Revision of the Stoplight Loosejaw Genus Malacosteus (Teleostei: Stomiidae: Malacosteinae), with Description of a New Species from the Temperate Southern Hemisphere and Indian Ocean|journal=Copeia|volume=2007|issue=4|pages=886–900|year=2007|doi=10.1643/0045-8511(2007)7[886:ROTSLG]2.0.CO;2}}</ref><ref name="sutton">{{cite journal|author=Sutton, T.T.|title=Trophic ecology of the deep-sea fish Malacosteus niger (Pisces: Stomiidae): An enigmatic feeding ecology to facilitate a unique visual system?|journal=Deep-Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers|volume=52|issue=11|date=Nov 2005|pages=2065–2076|doi=10.1016/j.dsr.2005.06.011|bibcode=2005DSRI...52.2065S|url=https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facpresentations/244}}</ref>$

The stoplight loosejaw is also one of the few fishes that produce red bioluminescence. As most of their prey cannot perceive red light, this allows it to hunt with an essentially invisible beam of light.

Longnose lancetfish. Lancetfish are ambush predators that frequent the mesopelagic. They are among the largest mesopelagic fishes (up to 2 metres).<ref name="Moyle336">Moyle and Cech, p. 336</ref>

The telescopefish has large, forward-pointing telescoping eyes with large lenses.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus=Gigantura|species=chuni|year=2010|month=October}}</ref>

The daggertooth slashes other mesopelagic fish when it bites them with its dagger-like teeth.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus=Anotopterus|species=pharao|year=2010|month=April}}</ref>

Bigeye tuna cruise the epipelagic zone at night and the mesopelagic zone during the day.

A collection of mesopelagic forage fishes trawled from the Gulf of Mexico that includes Myctophids, larval anglerfishes, bristlemouths, and a barracudina

The gulper eel uses its mouth like a net by opening its large mouth and swimming at its prey. It has a luminescent organ at the tip of its tail to attract prey.

The black swallower, with its distensible stomach, is notable for its ability to swallow, whole, bony fishes ten times its mass.<ref name="jordan">{{cite book|title=A Guide to the Study of Fishes|url=https://archive.org/details/aguidetostudyfi02jordgoog|author=Jordan, D.S.|publisher=H. Holt and Company|year=1905}}</ref><ref>{{fishbase species|genus=Chiasmodon|species=niger|year=2009|month=August}}</ref>

Female Haplophryne mollis anglerfish trailing attached males that have atrophied into a pair of gonads, for use when the female is ready to spawn.

The widespread fangtooth has the largest teeth of any fish, proportionate to body size.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus = Anoplogaster|species = cornuta|month = August|year = 2009}}</ref> Despite their ferocious appearance, bathypelagic fish are usually weakly muscled and too small to represent any threat to humans.

The Sloane's viperfish can make nightly migrations from bathypelagic depths to near surface waters.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus= Chauliodus|species= sloani|year= 2010|month= April}}</ref>

Pacific hagfish resting on bottom. Hagfish coat themselves and any dead fish they find with noxious slime making them inedible to other species."

The tripodfish (Bathypterois grallator), a species of spiderfish, uses its fin extensions to "stand" on the bottom.<ref>{{FishBase species|genus=Bathypterois|species=grallator|year=2009|month=August}}</ref>

The blotched fantail ray feeds on bottom-dwelling fish, bivalves, crabs, and shrimps.<ref>{{fishbase species|genus=Taeniura|species=meyeni|month=August|year=2009}}</ref>

These schooling Pacific sardines are forage fish

Yellowfin tuna are being fished as a replacement for the now largely depleted Southern bluefin tuna

King mackerels cruise on long migrations at 10 kilometres per hour

The scalloped hammerhead is classified as endangered

The oceanic whitetip shark has declined by 99% in the Gulf of Mexico

The devil fish, a large ray, is threatened

The anchoveta population was greatly reduced during the 1972 El Niño event, when warm water drifted over the cold Humboldt Current, as part of a 50-year cycle, lowering the depth of the thermocline.

Alexander von Humboldt

German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.

Humboldt as a boy with his widowed mother, Maria Elisabeth (Colomb) von Humboldt

The Tegel Palace, Berlin, where Alexander and his brother Wilhelm lived for several years

Schiller, Wilhelm, and Alexander von Humboldt with Goethe in Jena

Alexander von Humboldt's Latin American expedition

Charles IV of Spain who authorized Humboldt's travels and research in Spanish America

Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806

Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland were in the Amazon rainforest by the Casiquiare River, with their scientific instruments, which enabled them to take many types of accurate measurements throughout their five-year journey. Oil painting by Eduard Ender, 1856.

Map of the Cassiquiare canal based on Humboldt's 1799 observations

Humboldt botanical drawing published in his work on Cuba

Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland near the foot of the Chimborazo volcano, painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch (1810)

Silver mining complex of La Valenciana, Guanajuato, Mexico

Basalt prisms at Santa María Regla, Mexico by Alexander von Humboldt, published in Vue des Cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique

Dresden Codex, later identified as a Maya manuscript, published in part by Humboldt in 1810

1804 Map of the Louisiana Territory. Jefferson and his cabinet sought information from Humboldt when he visited Washington, D.C., about Spain's territory in Mexico, now bordering the U.S.

Humboldt depicted by American artist Charles Willson Peale, 1805, who met Humboldt when he visited the U.S. in 1804

Humboldt's Naturgemälde, also known as the Chimborazo Map, is his depiction of the volcanoes Chimborazo and Cotopaxi in cross section, with detailed information about plant geography. The illustration was published in The Geography of Plants, 1807, in a large format (54 cm x 84 cm). Largely used for global warming analyses, this map depicts in fact the vegetation of another volcano: the Antisana.

Isothermal map of the world using Humboldt's data by William Channing Woodbridge

Humboldt's depiction of an Andean condor, an example of his detailed drawing

Map of Humboldt's expedition to Russia in 1829

Photograph of Humboldt in his later years

Humboldt, portrait by Henry William Pickersgill (1831)

Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes (1859)

Portrait of Humboldt by Julius Schrader, 1859. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Humboldt in his library in his apartment, Oranienburger Straße, Berlin, by Eduard Hildebrandt

Signature of Humboldt late in life, when his handwriting became increasingly difficult to read

House where Humboldt and Bonpland lived in Mexico City in 1803, located at 80 Rep. de Uruguay in the historic centre, just south of the Zocalo

Statue to Humboldt in Alameda Park, Mexico City, erected 1999 on the two hundredth-anniversary of the beginning of his travels to Spanish America

Statue of Humboldt in Cuernavaca, Mexico

Waterfall over the Basaltic Prisms of Santa María Regla, Huasca de Ocampo, Hidalgo, Mexico, that Humboldt sketched

Ferdinand Bellermann, Sugar Plantation near Puerto Cabello

Ferdinand Bellermann. Llaneros (1843). Venezuela.<ref>Achenbach, Kunst um Humboldt, cat. 96, p. 141.</ref>

Eduard Hildebrandt, Passage with Indians (Brazil)

Frederic Edwin Church, Cotopaxi (1862) (in eruption)

Humboldt penguin, native to Chile and Peru

Humboldt squid found in the Humboldt Current

1959 postage stamp from the Soviet Union

Statue in Allegheny West Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Statue at Humboldt University of Berlin, describing him as "the second discoverer of Cuba"

Monument in Parque El Ejido, Quito, Ecuador

Humboldt, part of a sculpture in Cologne, Germany

Statue in Tower Grove Park, St. Louis<ref>Andreas W. Daum, "Celebrating Humanism in St. Louis: The Origins of the Humboldt Statue in Tower Grove Park, 1859‒1878." Gateway Heritage: Quarterly Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society (Fall 1994), 48-58.</ref>

Humboldt Current – off the west coast of South America

Prevailing winds, sea currents and stationary cyclones near Chile

Climate of Chile

The climate of Chile comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large geographic scale, extending across 38 degrees in latitude, making generalizations difficult.

Chile map of Köppen climate classification.

View toward the interior of Easter Island

Pan de Azúcar National Park in Atacama Desert

Mediterranean climate distribution in the Americas. Note that the map of Chile is turned upsidedown

Maritime influence makes some southern Andean valleys prone to snowfalls in winter such as in Curarrehue in the picture.

On a synoptic scale, the most important factors that control the climate in Chile are the Pacific Anticyclone, the southern circumpolar low pressure area, the cold Humboldt current, the Chilean Coast Range and the Andes Mountains.

Peru

Country in western South America.

Remains of a Caral/Norte Chico pyramid in the arid Supe Valley

Moche earrings depicting warriors, made of turquoise and gold (1–800 CE)

The citadel of Machu Picchu, an iconic symbol of pre-Columbian Peru

Main façade of the Lima Metropolitan Cathedral and the Archbishop's palace, Lima

The Battle of Ayacucho was decisive in ensuring Peruvian independence.

The Battle of Angamos, during the War of the Pacific.

Areas where the Shining Path was active in Peru.

The headquarters of the Andean Community is located in Lima

Map of Köppen climate classification zones in Peru

Andean cock-of-the-rock, Peru's national bird

A proportional representation of Peru exports, 2019

Casa de Osambela, headquarters of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (APL) in Lima

Quri Kancha and the Convent of Santo Domingo, Cusco

Moche Nariguera depicting the Decapitator, gold with turquoise and chrysocolla inlays. Museo del Oro del Peru, Lima

'Quipus' were recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America.

Saint Joseph and the Christ Child, Anonymous, Colonial Cusco Painting School, 17th–18th century

Ceviche is a popular lime-marinated seafood dish which originated in Peru.

The combination of tropical latitude, mountain ranges, topography variations, and two ocean currents (Humboldt and El Niño) gives Peru a large diversity of climates.

Peruvian anchoveta

Species of fish of the anchovy family, Engraulidae, from the Southeast Pacific Ocean.

After a period of plenty in the late 1960s, the population was greatly reduced by overfishing and the 1972 El Niño event, when warm water drifted over the cold Humboldt Current and lowered the depth of the thermocline.