2012.8.11雅思阅读考题回顾
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Reading Passage 1 |
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Title: |
El Niño Phenomenon厄尔尼诺 |
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Question types: |
TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN Summary 填空 |
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文章内容回顾 |
关于厄尔尼诺现象的介绍以及它产生的影响 |
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英文原文阅读 |
The term El Niño—Spanish for "the Christ Child"—was originally used by fishermen to refer to the Pacific Ocean warm currents near the coasts of Peru and Ecuador that appeared periodically around Christmas time and lasted for a few months. Due to those currents, fish were much less abundant than usual. At the present time we use the same name for the large-scale warming of surface waters of the Pacific Ocean every 3-6 years, which usually lasts for 9-12 months, but may continue for up to 18 months, and dramatically affects the weather worldwide. El Niño events happen irregularly. Their strength is estimated in surface atmospheric pressure anomalies and anomalies of land and sea surface temperatures. The El Niño phenomenon dramatically affects the weather in many parts of the world. It is therefore important to predict its appearance. Various climate models, seasonal forecasting models, ocean-atmosphere coupled models, and statistical models attempt to predict El Niño as a part of interannual climate variability. Predicting El Niño has been possible only since the 1980s, when the power of computers became sufficient to cover very complicated large-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions. El Niño''s Impact The strongest El Niño events of the 20th century occurred in 1982-''83 and in1997-''98. The effects of 1982-''83 included significant storms throughout the southwest United States and one of Australia''s worst droughts of the century. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the 1997-''98 El Niño was a major factor in 1997s record high temperatures. The estimated average surface temperature for land and sea worldwide was0.8°Fhigher than the 1961-1990 average of61.7°F. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 1998 has set all-time highs of global land and ocean surface temperatures, above record high levels in 1997. In 1998 the mean temperature was1.2°F(0.7°C) above the long-term (since 1880) mean of56.9°F(13.8°C). The impact of the 1997/8 El Niño has been felt in many parts of the world: Droughts have occurred in the Western Pacific Islands and Indonesia as well as in Mexico and Central America. In Indonesia drought caused uncontrollable forest fires and floods, while warm weather led to a bad fisheries season in Peru, and extreme rainfall and mud slides in southern California. Corals in the Pacific Ocean were bleached by warmer than average water, and shipping through the Panama Canal was restricted by below-average rainfall. El Niño phenomena dramatically affect the weather throughout the world. Among other weather anomalies, El Niño events are responsible for: A shift of thunderstorm activity eastward from Indonesia to the south Pacific, which leads to abnormally dry conditions and severe droughts during both warm and cold seasons in Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, southeastern Africa and Brazil. During the summer season the Indian monsoon is less intensive than normal and therefore it is much less rainy than usual in India. Much wetter conditions at the west coast of tropical South America. El Niño impacts on the United States, North America and the Atlantic regions include: Wetter than the normal conditions in tropical latitudes of North America, from Texas to Florida, including more intensive wintertime storms. Extreme rainfall and flooding events in California, Oregon and Washington.
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