🧬 How does this new large lake manage to survive in the Vallée de le Mort?

2024-02-26 12:00:03

How can this lake survive in one of the driest places on the planet? This is the mystery that the forest rangers of Death Valley have been trying to solve for more than a half year, facing a ghost lake whose persistence breaks all records. longevity (The longevity of a living being is the length of life for which it is…) known

False color satellite image of the ephemeral lake at Badwater Basin in the National Park Vallee (A valley is a geographical depression generally shaped…) of Death on July 5, 2023, August 30, 2023 and February 14, 2024. The dark blue areas represent stagnant water and color (Color is the eye’s subjective perception of one or more wave frequencies…) Green represents wet soil.
Crédit: NASA Earth Observatory/Landsat/Wanmei Liang

In the heart of the Badwater Basin, the lowest point of theAmerica (America is a continent separated, to the west, from Asia and…) of the North, there is usually a landscape (Etymologically, landscape is the arrangement of features, characters, shapes of a…) sorry, marked by dried out soil and crystallized by salt. However, following exceptional rainfall, this basin transformed into a temporary lake of water, extending up to 11.3 kilomètres (The meter (symbol m, from the Greek metron, measurement) is the basic unit of length of the System…) of length (The length of an object is the distance between its two furthest ends…).

Normally, rapid evaporation due to heat (In everyday language, the words heat and temperature often have an equivalent meaning:…) The overwhelming force of Death Valley reduces this phenomenon to a few weeks. But against all odds, the lake, formed at the end of August 2023 after the passage of Hurricane Hilary, not only reached an impressive size, but also defied the natural cycle by persisting well into -beyond the usual lifespan for a lake in this location.

Cumulative precipitation of nearly 12.4 cm over the past six months has helped maintain and even replenish the lake, allowing it to accommodate unexpected activities such as kayaking . This phenomenon, coupled with a rare snow cover on the neighboring peaks, brought by a river (In French-speaking hydrography, a river is a watercourse which flows into the sea or into…) atmospheric early February, highlights the strangeness and surprising beauty of these natural events in a environment (The environment is everything that surrounds us. It is all of the natural elements and…) so inhospitable.

The lake is deep enough for kayaking.
Crédit: NPS/Michael Kohler

Experts remain perplexed as to why the lake was able to survive for so long, calling it a major anomaly from previous observations. Despite the lack of data (In information technology (IT), data is a basic description, often…) historical data on the lifespan of such ephemeral lakes, the current persistence (Persistence (statistics) Persistence (computing) in painting: The Persistence of…) of the body of water in Death Valley is a reminder of nature’s ability to surprise and defy expectations.

This ephemeral lake, located in a place symbolizing extreme aridity, reminds us of the power and unpredictability of meteorological phenomena, but also the importance to monitor and study these anomalies to better understand the complex environmental dynamics of our planète (A planet is a celestial body orbiting the Sun or another star in…).

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