Get Ready for Some Wild Weather
Ⅰ.Reading Strategy: Reading Tables and Graphs
Learn to read tables and graphs to increase your understanding of what you read.Most people think learning to read well means learning to read essays,stories, or books.However, there are many different kinds of reading.
Learning to read tables and graphs will help you in your studies.Tables and graphs often contain information that is useful and important to the reader.
Sometimes,this information makes an essay clearer.You can also use a graphic organizer to help you organize information.A graphic organizer can be a picture or a diagram.It can contain the topic, the main ideas, and the examples from a reading.
Look at the tables, photos, illustrations, and other graphics in a text before you read.This will help you prepare to read.Tables, photos,illustrations, maps, charts, and other visual features of a text are called graphics.Graphics often show, in a visual way, what the text is about.
Before you read an article or book, flip through the pages and view the graphics.
What do the photos and illustrations tell you about the people and settings that will be described?Are there maps ? If so, what parts of the world do they represent ? These areas will probably be discussed in the text.
Are there charts and tables?What kinds of information do they present ?This information will probably be explained in more detail in the text.
By looking at these graphic elements first,you will have an idea what the text is about before you even begin reading.
Ⅱ.Applying the Reading Strategy
In this part,you are required to use the reading strategy you have just learned.Read the following table and chart and answer the questions after them.
An average person needs 2, 000 calories a day from his or her food, and only 0% of those calories should be from fat that is equal to about 65 grams of fat.
Which kind of fast food is above this average in terms of grams?A.DOUBLE WHOPPER with Cheese Sandwich.
B.Fish Filet Deluxe.
C.Italian Sausage.
D.No sugar low-fat ice cream.
The bar chart below shows the weight in kilograms of some fruit sold one day by a local market.
How many kilograms of apples and star fruit were sold?A.51 kg and 42 kg.B.54 kg and 24 kg.
C.52 kg and 16 kg.D.52 kg and 8 kg.
Ⅲ.Reading Tasks
A.Pre-reading activity
Before reading, look at the graph carefully.What does it explain about El Nino ? What information can you get from it?B.Reading
A Warning From Nature
Last summer, the Atlantic Ocean was strangely calm.During the usually tormy months between July and November, only one hurricane was recorded,when there are normally seven or eight.This was one effect of El Nino.Its other effects were far less beneficial.Droughts and flooding crippled parts of the tropics, while the storms that failed to appear in the Atlantic instead swept across the Pacific, battering the western states of the Americas.Even the semi-desert state of Arizona did not escape the deluge.
El Nino has existed for a long time.It was first observed by Peruvian fishermen, who noticed that the sea warmed up every few years around Christmas time.They named the phenomenon El Nino, which is Spanish for “the child”,and refers to the young Christ.
In more recent years, climatologists have established that El Nino appears every two or seven years.Its cause is still unknown, but it s clear that when it does appear, it can disrupt weather patterns over three quarters of the globe.In fact, after the El Nino of 1982/ 1983, climatologists realized that it affects the world s weather systems more than any other phenomenon except the seasons.
That El Nino killed over 2, 000 people in floods and droughts and caused ＄ 13 billion worth of damage.
In the wake of such global climatic disruption, climatologists have begun to concentrate on the relationship between the oceans and the atmosphere.What has emerged is a complex interaction between sea and air,which drives the world s weather systems.Ocean temperatures create winds which control currents, which in turn move heat around the surface of the oceans, creating new winds, in a cycle that repeats itself endlessly.By examining this relationship, climatologists have begun to understand how a body of water,which is only slightly warmer than the water around it, can have a profound effect on a region s climate.And when the body of warm water is the size of this yea s El Nino, global climatic upheaval seems inevitable.
At its peak,El Nino stretches for more than 6, 000 miles ( about 10,000 km ) - more than one quarter of the circumference of the Earth.It begins when warm water flows into areas of the Pacific Ocean which are normally cool.This disturbs the usual wind patterns and ocean currents,significantly affecting where rain falls.
In a normal year,trade winds push surface water west,heating up the western Pacific around Australia and Indonesia.This produces warm air, which causes thunderstorms and rain.The eastern Pacific, by contrast, fills up with cool water, which is full of nutrients and provides fishermen on the west coast of South America with excellent catches.In short,the western Pacific enjoys a hot,damp climate; the eastern a cooler, dry one.
In an El Nino year, the reverse happens.It begins when the trade winds lessen.Without these winds to blow warm surface water to the western Pacific,sea currents pull the warm water eastwards, along with the storms and rain.
The result is drought in the countries of the western Pacific, and heavy rainfall in the central Pacific and along the coast of South America.
The appearance of all this warm water in the east has deleterious effects on the west coast of the Americas.Deprived of cold nutrient - rich water, fish stocks plummet marine life either starves or migrates to other waters.
Agriculture also suffers.Dry weather crops found along South America s usually aridcoastal regions seldom survive heavy rainfall or flooding.
