History of Climate Records and Climate Change in Mexico City
Mexico City lies in the Basin of Mexico, and has been one of the most densely-populated areas of the world for thousands of years[1]. Consequently, it serves as a prime area for exploration of human impacts on climate and climate change. Mountains surround 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 modern Mexico City expanded 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 always been this way, or if manÕs overbearing presence in the Basin of Mexico has had real effects on the areaÕs 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 (OÕHara and Metcalfe, 1995). More widespread collection of weather data was taken beginning in the 1870Õs through the newly-establish Meteorological Observatory, which introduced meteorological stations throughout the country, but civil unrest later on...
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We firstly delve into the city and what it means to the Mexica people. Then, we enter the minds of the people who enjoy their part of society in different ways. From the warriors and priests, to the mothers, wifes and children of Tenochtitlan. Next, Clendinnen enters the world of rituals, sacrifices and aesthetics before finishing off with the defeat of the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan by the forces of Cortes in 1521.
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The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people that lived in the area of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th century. It is said that Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan. Aztlan was the Aztec's homeland, nobody knows exactly where it was, but it is believed that Aztlan lies somewhere to the north of Mexico. Some experts claim that Aztlan is a mythical place. According to Aztec legends Huitzilopochtli, their god of war and of the sun, told them to leave Aztlan and to wander until they saw an eagle on a cactus budding out of a rock and eating a snake. The Aztecs traveled many years to find the legend that Huitzilopochtli had told. They left Aztlan in the 12th century. They built their settlements in the Valley of Mexico by Lake Texcoco. There were other Indian tribes living in the area when the Aztecs arrived. The Aztecs called their settlement Tenochtitlan. By the time they settled after two centuries of voyage they called themselves by a different name, the Mexica, but the term Aztec has been used as a ...
The Aztec people began as a nomadic group on the shores of Lake Texcoco in modern day Mexico. They eventually settled on a marshy island on the lake w...
The ancient Aztecs, who most likely originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico, arrived in Mesoamerica at approximately the beginning of the 13th century. For a long time, the nomads wandered the land of Mexica, countlessly resettling into new areas in a constant search for land that was fertile and that they could call their own. Before the founding of their capital city of Tenochtitlan in 1325, the Aztecs had to work for various cities and small empires that were more powerful than them in order to gain military experience and come out as the dominant force in central Mexico. Through developing an intricate social, political, religious and commercial organization, it was by the 15th century that the empire brought many of the region’s city-states under their control.
...Gaffney, Jeannette. Between Aztlan and Quivira: Europeans and Indians in the Southwestern United States. (1991) Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. www.yale.edu
The low land setting of the Maya Civilization was varied, depended upon a rain cycle, not always reliable. The land mass occupies a significant part of modern Mexico, comprising of the eastern parts, spreading to all northwestern high kinds. The weather varied due to?
Kishlansky, Mark A. Sources of World History. "An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico" (1528).
Mexico’s has a rich history, culture, economy, and government. Prior to the Spanish arrival, Mexico was habited by Indian groups with varying economic and political systems. The communities that lived in the north comprised of gatherers and hunters. However, agriculturalists populated the rest of the country. They were a dense population and were characterized by varying cultures (Miller, 2015). The county has developed tremendously since the Spanish conquest. The government has also changed continuously over the years.
Mexicans, as constructed by Menchaca, are a predominantly mestizo population whose mixed ancestry she traces to early Latin American civilizations. In 200 BC the largest city in the Americas, Teotihuacán, was founded. Teotihuacán would one day be the site of Mexico City, and by 650 AD there were between 120,000 and 250,000 inhabitants. (2) Groups that inhabited the region fro...
Before the 15th century, the Indians in the Americas were not connected with the world and would remain that way until Columbus's exploration. In the beginning of 15th century, the Aztecs were the dominant group in Mesoamerica leaded by Montezuma, the last leader, before the Spanish conquest. In 1519, Hernan Cortez led the Spanish mission to explore and conquer the New World. This paper will compare three primary sources about this event. First, an informing letter sent from Cortez to King Charles V, the king of Spain. Second, the Broken Spears which is an Indian recollection about the conquest of Mexico. Lastly, Bernal Diaz’s (one of Cortez’s men) account was written by him to share his experience with Aztec civilization. Moreover, this paper will show the credibility of Diaz’s account compared to the other sources because the objectivity of his tone, written after a while of the event, and the author’s great experience and his independent purpose of the source.
Seler, Eduard, Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann, Paul Schellhas, Karl Sapper, E. P. Dieseldorff, and Charles P. Bowditch. Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History: Twenty-four Papers. Washington: G.P.O., 1904. Print.
McMean, G. (2007, June). Artic climate impact assessment (C. Symon, Ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge Univercity Press. http://www.acia.uaf.edu/pages/scientific.html