Climatic Change in a Large Shallow Tropical Lake Chapala, Mexico

Abstract

Measurements of temperature, currents and lake level taken in 2005-2014 are analyzed and discussed. We obtained a conceptually new data set on the formation of the thermocline in Lake Chapala. It is showed that the thermocline in the lake occurs only during the daytime, in the top 0.5-1.0-m layer of the water column, whereby the vertical temperature gradient reaches 2.5°C/m within that layer. At night, the top layer is cooled, which causes strong vertical mixing down to the bottom. Moored measurements of temperature and level from Lake Chapala reveal the presence of seiches oscillations with periods of 5.7 and 2.8 hours with amplitudes of 15.4 and 8.1 mm. Temperature measurements on sections across the lake showed that in the northern part of the lake, the water column is warmer that in southern 2-3°C in all seasons. The lake currents were simulated for wet and dry seasons. The model results are in good agreement with the acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data. The presence of an anticyclone gyre in the central part of the lake in both seasons is detected.

Failing kidneys: Hotspots, blind spots and biopolitics of indifference

“…Approximately 20 million people depend on the lake and wider basin for irrigation, sanitation, and water supply (Filonov et al., 2016). This dependence has a history.…”

The Hindrances to Obtaining Protected Geographical Indications for Products in Mexico. Case Study of Dairy Farming in the Cienega de Chapala, Michoacan

“…Dairy farming of the Cienega de Chapala, Michoacan, is a product of a landscape heritage in which the natural characteristics of a territory converge with one of the largest lakes in Mexico, with a continuous hydrodynamic system [30] that allowed the configuration of an extraordinary space of geoforms, soils and biota, as well as the historical, social, and cultural characteristics of the process of space anthropization [31] that has been the product of a continuous succession of human communities that have formed a diverse, unequal and complex regional society, with a vast cultural richness and closely linked to the history of the country. Here, the space formed by four municipalities (Marcos Castellanos, Sahuayo, Jiquilpan and Venustiano Carranza) that occupy part of the mainland and part of the dried-up area the Cienega of Lake Chapala, located in the state of Michoacan, is called the "territory of Cienega de Chapala".…”