Bosque Andino Patagónico
The Bosque Andino Patagónico is a type of temperate to cold forest located in southern Chile and western Patagonia in Chile and Argentina at the southern end of South America. The climate here is influenced by humid air masses moving in from the Pacific Ocean which lose most of their moisture as they rise over the Andes. The flora is dominated by trees, usually of the Nothofagus genus.
The Bosque Andino Patagónico represents one of the few relatively undisturbed temperate forests that has been little changed by man. It occupies approximately 6.5 million hectares of land. It is culturally significant because of its archaeological and historical value.
The Andean Patagonian forest region is located between 37°S and 55°S latitude, and clothes both sides of the Cordillera. The forest extends for about 2,200 kilometres (1,400 mi) parallel to the Pacific coast, extending from just south of Mendoza in Argentina to the southern end of Santa Cruz Province and to the island portion of the province of Tierra del Fuego. It is a narrow strip of land, with a maximum width of 75 km (47 mi), dwindling to zero in places near the Chubut River and Santa Cruz Province. It is bounded to the east by the Patagonian Desert. Ecologically the forest have no equivalent in the northern hemisphere. This is indebted to distinct biota histories and environmental differences.
The forest is divided into four regions; deciduous forest, Magellan forest, Valdivia forest and Del Pehuén. Rainfall is more plentiful in the Andean area than in other parts of Patagonia and there are several lakes, reservoirs and hydro-electric projects within the forested area. There is also an increase in population in nearby urban areas and greater tourism in the forest, resulting in increasing pollution.
The climate of these forests is governed by atmospheric, topographical and oceanic factors. The prevailing westerly winds are laden with moisture and come from the Pacific Ocean, being linked to the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone. Frontal systems move inland and precipitation is high at low altitudes in southern Patagonia, making the fiord region one of the wettest places on earth outside the tropics, with rainfall topping 7,000 mm (276 in) per year in places. To the east of the Andes precipitation declines to nearly nil. In northern Patagonia, the seasons vary as the anticyclone oscillates northwards in summer and southwards in winter. More frontal systems cross the coast during the winter and that is the season when most precipitation occurs on the western slopes of the mountains. Some places suffer prolonged droughts in summer, and further east, on the Patagonian plateau, the air is no longer moist and little rain falls at any time of year. Over a west-east distance of 80 kilometres (50 mi), precipitation can fall from 2,000 mm (79 in) per year to 200 mm (8 in).
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