Source: Nature: "Life in Death Valley"
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Set in the largely barren and unpopulated country east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is Death Valley. Its landscape features streaming sand dunes, snow-capped mountains, multicolored rock layers, water-fluted canyons, and three million acres of stone wilderness. Experience the surreal and haunting landscape of Death Valley in this video segment from Nature.
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The extreme climate of Death Valley is attributable to its location on the leeward (downwind) side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in central California. Air that has been warmed and moistened by its passage over the Pacific Ocean is driven up over the Sierras as it is carried eastward by the prevailing southwesterly winds of the northern mid-latitudes.
As the air rises up over the mountains, it expands and cools, triggering condensation that forms clouds and causes precipitation on the windward (west facing) slopes. At the same time, the latent heat stored in the water vapor in the air is released by the condensation process, adding measurable heat to the air As the now warmer and drier air continues its eastward journey over the peaks and begins its descent into the valleys on the leeward side of the range, its temperature rises as it is compressed under the higher atmospheric pressure of the lower elevations. The fact that Death Valley lies below sea level causes even more compression of the descending air, creating a very hot and dry “rain shadow desert” in Death Valley.
No place else in the western hemisphere is as hot, as dry -- or as hostile.
At face value, its sheer vastness can be intimidating. . .
And Death Valley has many faces.
Badlands brood over ancient lakebeds. . .
While fickle currents of sand shift along desert floor.
Craters blasted by molten rock plunge seven-hundred feet . . .
And parched Salt flats languish for forty miles.
Death Valley’s stark terrain may seem uninviting to some – and for good reason. . .
You can die here.
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