Abstract

GARZA MERODIO, Gustavo Gerardo. Frequency and lasting of droughts in the Basin of Mexico from late 16^th Century to Mid 19^th Century. Invest. Geog [online]. 2002, n.48, pp.106-115. ISSN 2448-7279.

The long lasting study of climate through the systematic analysis of documentary sources is among the so called proxy-records, registrations used in order to recognize the climatic behaviour during several centuries. This methodological possibility has been hardly practiced in Mexico until the late Twentieth Century, thus, the background in this kind of research was not meant to distinguish the climatic behaviour in a regional scale during large periods of droughts time, in fact, it aimed to relate certain socioeconomic events with climatic anomalies. At the same time, it was a research not based in continuos and homogeneous documentary sources, condition accomplished by the rogation ceremonies records registered in the books of the civil and ecclesiastic files; these archives were carefully inspected since the beginning of their recording until the decade of 1860, when they ended as an institutional performance, their duration as part of the public and religious records along two hundred and seventy years (1600-1870) gave the opportunity to knowledge droughts in the basin of México. Of the different climatic phenomena, they were the only ones that had the chance to be reliable acknowledge according to the type of information found in Mexico City, since the fundamental mechanism of data, rogation ceremonies, were constantly recorded only during the drought chapters. The rogation ceremonies were carried out with the expectancy of giving end to an environmental or morbid vicissitude. In Mexico City these ceremonies were dedicated, most of the times, to the Virgin of "Los Remedios".

Keywords : Historical climatology; proxy-records; rogation ceremonies; regional climatic behaviour.

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