History of Climate Records and Climate Change in Mexico City Essay exam

History of Climate Records and Climate Change in Mexico metropolis Mexico urban center lies in the Basin of Mexico, and has been one of the most densely-populated areas of the world for thousands of years1. Consequently, it serves as a prime area for exploration of human impacts on climate and climate change. Mountains call the Basin of Mexico on three sides when the Spanish conquered the basin in 1519, it contained five lakes that connected during times of abundant precipitation. The lakes were drained as new Mexico City grow and today the majority of the basin is covered with human structures and concrete roads (Kasperson et al, 1995). With latitude 19 degrees and an elevation of 2250m, Mexico City has a temperate climate year-round. summer brings intense convective rains caused by the unstable air and moist conditions of the prevailing trade winds (Juaregei, 1997). An abundance of historical data has the power to tell us whether the climate has of all time been th is way, or if mans overbearing presence in the Basin of Mexico has had real effects on the areas climate. Source www.holyartworks.com Lake Texcoco, the site of modern Mexico City, during the time of Aztec rule (around 1500) Although the area that Mexico City now occupies has was settled by man over 6,000 years ago, regular reports of temperature and rainfall were not collected until 1826. The Mexico City newspaper, El Sol, was the publication that first made regular weather reports available (OHara and Metcalfe, 1995). More widespread collection of weather data was taken beginning in the 1870s through the newly-establish Meteorological Observatory, which introduced meteorological stations throughout the country, but civil unrest later on... ...ents. Eds. Jeanne X. Kasperson, Rogr E. Kasperson, and B.L. Truner II. New York United Nations University Press, 1995. Juaregei, Ernesto. Climate Changes in Mexico During the historical and Instrumented Periods. Quarternary Inte rnational. Vol. 43/44. (1997) 7-17. Juaregei, Ernesto. Heat Island Development in Mexico City. Atmospheric Environment. Vol. 31, No.22. (1997) 3821-3831. Metcalfe, Sarah E. Histoical Data and Climatic Change in Mexico A Review. The Geographical Journal. Vol. 153, No. 2. (1987) 211-222. OHara, Sarah L., and Sarah E. Metcalfe. The Climate of Mexico Since the Aztec Period. Quarternary International. Vol. 43/44. (1997) 25-31. OHara, Sarah L., and Sarah E. Metcalfe. Reconstructing the Climate of Mexico from Historical Records. The Holocene. Vol. 5, No. 4. (1995) 485-490.