Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The decline of the Mayan Civilization is thought to be caused by a series of droughts that affected the Yucatan Peninsula during the Terminal Classic Period (TCP) 800-1000 AD.This study modeled groundwater recharge for the TCP and the historical period .Precipitation was reconstructed using proxy data for the Yucatan Peninsula.Drought periods were identified, but the annual time scale for the proxy data precluded their use for recharge modeling.A daily time series representative of the TCP climate was thus generated using a novel backward shift factor approach using output from the Community Climate System Model Version 4 (CCSM4).Shift factors (for precipitation and temperature) were applied to observed precipitation data for recharge modeling.Average annual recharge was 1.7% higher during the TCP, and the majority of this higher recharge occurred during the wet season.These changes indicate the Yucatan Peninsula may have been susceptible to dry season droughts.
Source: Summit (Simon Fraser University)
Author: S. Van Pelt
Language: English
Subfield: Geochemistry and Petrology
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2593468478