Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico

Acuña-Soto, Rodolfo; Stahle, David W.; Cleaveland, Malcolm K.; Therrell, Matthew D.

doi:10.3201/eid0804.010175

Cited by 216 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This relatively warm episode in the late 16th century is recorded as one of the most important droughts during the last 500 years in northwest Mexico (ref. 22 and references therein), a region where currently arid climates are dominant, and as a time of historical deadly epidemics in central Mexico (23,24). The data from Lago Verde strongly suggest that during the LIA lake levels and vegetation at Los Tuxtlas were responding to solar forcing and provide further evidence that solar activity is an important element controlling decadal to centennial scale climatic variability in the tropics (6) and in general over the North Atlantic region (2,19).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Tracing the effects of the Little Ice Age in the tropical lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica

Lozano‐García¹,

Caballero

Ortega

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The causes of late-Holocene centennial to millennial scale climatic variability and the impact that such variability had on tropical ecosystems are still poorly understood. Here, we present a highresolution, multiproxy record from lowland eastern Mesoamerica, studied to reconstruct climate and vegetation history during the last 2,000 years, in particular to evaluate the response of tropical vegetation to the cooling event of the Little Ice Age (LIA). Our data provide evidence that the densest tropical forest cover and the deepest lake of the last two millennia were coeval with the LIA, with two deep lake phases that follow the Spö rer and Maunder minima in solar activity. The high tropical pollen accumulation rates limit LIA's winter cooling to a maximum of 2°C. Tropical vegetation expansion during the LIA is best explained by a reduction in the extent of the dry season as a consequence of increased meridional flow leading to higher winter precipitation. These results highlight the importance of seasonal responses to climatic variability, a factor that could be of relevance when evaluating the impact of recent climate change.climate variability ͉ Late Holocene ͉ Mexico ͉ seasonality ͉ tropical ecosystems T he Little Ice Age (LIA) (1350-1850 A.D.) has been identified as one of the most important climatic oscillations of the late Holocene and the last of several centennial to millennial scale Holocene cooling events centered over the North Atlantic (1-4). Low-latitude cooling during the LIA is evident from tropical glacier advances (5, 6), and reduced sea-surface temperatures in the Caribbean (7-9). Dry LIA conditions in the Caribbean are relatively well documented and explained by a change in the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) (10, 11), but little is known about the impact that this climatic event had on the lowland tropical ecosystems of the Americas. Lago Verde, near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Fig. 1), is a highly sensitive record of recent climate change (12,13) where the response of the tropical vegetation and the lake system to the LIA cooling can be clearly traced, without any significant human impact. Multiproxy data from this lake show that in this tropical region the LIA is recorded by the deepest lake level and the densest forest cover of the last two millennia. In this article, we present arguments evaluating the role of solar forcing as an important element explaining climatic variability in the tropics and the North Atlantic region. We also discuss the role of regional moisture balance as a condition for the expression of regional precipitation trends, and, finally, we present an argument about the importance that changes in the seasonality of precipitation can have over the Gulf of Mexico coastal region, mitigating the dry LIA trend recorded in some areas of the Caribbean. Study SiteThis study is based mainly on pollen, charcoal particles, and diatom analyses on the sediment record from Lago Verde, a small, closed-basin lake at 200 m above sea level, on the outskirts of ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Tracing the effects of the Little Ice Age in the tropical lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica

Lozano‐García¹,

Caballero

Ortega

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Even though molecular evidence of the presence of M. tuberculosis in the pre-Colombian age has been reported (19,25), controversy over this issue remains. If tuberculosis existed in native populations, the prevalence of specific spoligotypes would shrink significantly, since the population of about 22 million people living in Mesoamerica in 1520 was reduced by 95% by 1600, mainly because of infectious diseases (1). Therefore, the M. tuberculosis genetic pool was also reduced by the same proportion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Spoligotypes in Monterrey, Mexico

et al. 2010

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Although tuberculosis is still a public health problem in Mexico, there is little information about the genetic characteristics of the isolates. In the present study, we analyzed by spoligotyping 180 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates from the urban area of Monterrey, Mexico, including drug-susceptible and drug-resistant isolates. The spoligotype patterns were compared with those in the international SITVIT2 spoligotyping database. Four isolates presented spoligotype patterns not found in the database (orphan types); the rest were distributed among 44 spoligo international types (SITs). SIT53 (clade T1) and SIT119 (clade X1) were predominant and included 43 (23.8%) and 28 (15.5%) of the isolates, respectively. In order to determine if there was a dominant spoligotype in the group of multidrug-resistant isolates, 37 of them were analyzed by IS6110-based restriction fragment length polymorphism assays, and scarce clustering of strains with more than five bands was observed. Fourteen isolates of this multidrug-resistant group presented four bands or less and were distributed in four SITs: SIT53 (n ‫؍‬ 8), SIT92 (n ‫؍‬ 3), SIT70 (n ‫؍‬ 2), and SIT3038 (n ‫؍‬ 1). When the molecular detection of mutations in the katG and rpoB genes were analyzed in these isolates with low copy numbers of IS6110, only two isolates shared the same IS6110, spoligotyping, and mutations patterns. When the distribution of the spoligotypes was analyzed by age cohort, SIT119 was predominantly found in patients 0 to 20 years old, especially in males, accounting for up to 40% of the isolates. In contrast, SIT53 was more prevalent in older females. This analysis demonstrates the variability of M. tuberculosis isolates in Monterrey and the partial dominance of SIT53 and SIT119 in that area of Mexico.

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“…The availability of continuous, long-term hydrological data beyond the few decades covered by the instrumental record is a necessary prerequisite to fully characterize regional hydrological variability and to unequivocally address its dependence on large-scale climatic fluctuations, especially as far as the identification of forcing mechanisms at the hemispheric to global scales is concerned. Elucidation of Mesoamerican hydroclimate variability and associated dynamics before the instrumental period will also contribute to the debate on the intricate cultural changes that occurred in the region during pre-Columbian times 12 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent drying in the tropics linked to natural forcing

et al. 2015

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Approximately half of the world's population lives in the tropics, and future changes in the hydrological cycle will impact not just the freshwater supplies but also energy production in areas dependent upon hydroelectric power. It is vital that we understand the mechanisms/ processes that affect tropical precipitation and the eventual surface hydrological response to better assess projected future regional precipitation trends and variability. Paleo-climate proxies are well suited for this purpose as they provide long time series that pre-date and complement the present, often short instrumental observations. Here we present paleo-precipitation data from a speleothem located in Mesoamerica that reveal large multi-decadal declines in regional precipitation, whose onset coincides with clusters of large volcanic eruptions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This reconstruction provides new independent evidence of long-lasting volcanic effects on climate and elucidates key aspects of the causal chain of physical processes determining the tropical climate response to global radiative forcing.

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Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico

Cited by 216 publications

References 8 publications

Tracing the effects of the Little Ice Age in the tropical lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica

Tracing the effects of the Little Ice Age in the tropical lowlands of eastern Mesoamerica

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Spoligotypes in Monterrey, Mexico

Persistent drying in the tropics linked to natural forcing

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