Comprehension and Discussion. Ex. 1. Say whether the following statements are true or false
Ex. 1. Say whether the following statements are true or false. Justify your answers with information from the text. For the statements you consider to be false, provide the correct information.
1. Climate is the average condition of the atmosphere.
2. There is no agreement on the approach to the classification or the kind of classification of climatic belts to be used.
3. The most important elements of any climate are humidity of the air and cloudiness.
4. Due to the daily and yearly movements of the earth the sun’s heat is unevenly distributed.
5. The oceans don’t influence climate.
6. Proximity to large water bodies affects precipitation levels.
7. Climate depends on position of the particular place on the earth with respect to the sun at different times of the year.
Ex. 2. Do you strongly agree or disagree with the following statements. Explain your answers. Here are the possible openings for you.
| Agreeing | Disagreeing |
| absolutely so really so it can’t be denied as far as I know | That is only partly true on the contrary it is absolutely wrong as far as I remember (from the text) |
1. The weather is very important to me.
2. I feel at my best when it rains cats and dogs.
3. The weather influences the way I feel in general.
4. I believe that weather conditions can influence people’s well-being and their behavior.
5. It’s hard to stand the heat when it’s damp.
6. The weather in Belarus is very changeable.
7. Talking about the fashion is a good way to “break the ice” when you meet someone new.
8. Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Ex. 3. Complete the following sentences.
1. Climate is …
2. The most important elements in determining climate are …
3. Climatic patterns depend on …
4. Continentality means …
5. Interior lands experience …
6. Maritime locations have smaller …
7. Summer and winter extremes in coastal communities are moderated by …
8. Proximity to large water bodies influences …
9. The third prime geographic influence…
Ex. 4. Talk to a partner and find out.
· how he / she understands the term climate
· what principal categories of climate he knows
· why there are different climates
· what part of the world has no winter
· in what climate trees don’t grow
· what category Belarus (the UK) comes in
· what continentality means
· what precipitation level depends on
· how oceans influence the climate
· how continental climates differ from marine climates
· the difference between hot and temperate climates
· how topography influence the climate
Ex. 5. Speak on:
1. Climate and its classification: aggregate, weather conditions, to determine, temperature and precipitation, belts (zones), to be distinguished, average temperature, rainfall.
2. Three geographic controls:
a) latitude, sun’s heat, to be distributed, to be exposed to direct rays of the sun, daylight period, short, long.
b) contitentality, to experience, seasonal extremes of temperatures, water bodies; maritime locations, temperature ranges, extremes, to be moderated by, proximity, influence, precipitation levels, water bodies, provide, evaporation, increase, the amount of moisture, coastal locations, to receive.
c) topography, the relationship between elevation and temperature, to lie astride a normal wind direction, to force the air to rise and cool, the amount of moisture, to be reduced, the relative humidity, to reach 100 percent, the windward side, the lee.
Ex. 6. Draw a scheme of climatic belts using any approach to the climate classification you know and describe it.
Ex. 7. Choose one of the following items and write an essay. Use additional material.
1. Climatic change and its origin.
2. Climatic controls.
3. Ocean currents.
4. Global warming.
Text B
Task. Read the text and get ready to discuss various climates.
The climate of the UK
The climate of Britain is more or less the same as that of the north-western part of the European mainland, yet its climate is much milder because of the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and air across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. The popular belief that it rains all the time in Britain is simply not true. The image of a wet, foggy land was created two thousand years ago by the invading Romans and has been perpetuated in modern times by Hollywood. In fact, London gets no more rain in a year than most other major European cities, and less than some. Its weather may be unpredictable, but it is not particularly wet. The amount of precipitation is distributed more or less evenly throughout the year. The wind brings rain from the Atlantic to the hills of the west. This means that the western parts of Britain are wetter than the east, which is fairly sheltered. In the mountains there is heavier rainfall than in the plains of the south and east. The mild winters mean that snow is a regular feature of the higher areas only. Occasionally, a whole winter goes by in lower-lying parts without any snow at all. The winters are in general a bit colder in the east of the country than they are in the west, while in summer; the south is slightly warmer and sunnier than the north.
The mean range of temperature (from winter to summer) reaches 18-20 0C.
Average temperatures in England and Wales vary from 40C in January to 160C in July and August. In Scotland averages are one or two degrees cooler, and an average July day is about as warm as Marseilles in December.
January and February are usually the coldest months, July and August the warmest. Still the wind may bring winter cold in spring or summer days. Sometimes it brings whirlwinds or hurricanes. Droughts are rare.
Why has Britain’s climate got such a bad reputation? Perhaps it is for the same reason that British people always seem to be talking about the weather. This is its changeability. There is a saying that Britain doesn’t have a climate, it only has weather. It may not rain very much altogether, but you can never be sure of a dry day; there can be cool (even cold) days in July and some quite warm days in January.
In no country other than Britain can one experience four seasons in the course of a single day! Day may break as a balmy spring morning; an hour or so later black clouds may have appeared from nowhere and the rain may be pouring down. At midday conditions may be really wintry with the temperature down by about 8 degrees or more centigrade. And then, in the late afternoon, the sky will clear, the sun will begin to shine, and for an hour or two before darkness falls, it will be summer.
And, of course, the weather’s variety provides a constant topic of conversation. Even the most taciturn of the British is always prepared to discuss the weather. And, though he sometimes complains bitterly of it, he would not, even if he could, exchange it for the more predictable climate of other lands.
Ex. 1. Scan the text and put a tick (V) beside the comments you agree with in the 1st column. Think about the climate in your country and complete the 2nd column. Compare your answers in groups.
| Distinguishing characteristics | Great Britain | Belarus |
| 1. The weather is very changeable 2. There isn’t enough variety 3. It’s too cold in winter 4. Occasional frost is possible 5. It seldom snows heavily 6. There are too many thunderstorms 7. Wind may bring hurricanes 8. There’s too much fog throughout the year 9. It’s very humid in summer 10. There isn’t enough rain in summer and everything gets very dry 11. Droughts are rare 12. Precipitation is distributed unevenly through -out the year |
Ex. 2. Scan the text and guess what country is mentioned.
The country enjoys various climatic types. They range from the tropical regions to the cool temperate conditions. Climatic diversity is due to the country’s great size. The precipitation is distributed unevenly throughout the year. The regular snowfalls occur in the southeast and temperatures fall below zero. In the northern region rain occurs mainly in February and March. The country is subject to severe droughts. More than 2/3 of the area is occupied by deserts.
The average annual temperatures vary from 270C in the far north to 130C in the far south. The coastal locations experience smaller seasonal extremes of temperatures as a result of a maritime influence, but suffer from floods and cyclones. January and February are the hottest months; June and July are the coldest months.
Predominantly evergreen vegetation ranges from the dense bushland of the coast to the mulga and mallee scrub of inland plains.
Ex. 3. Look at the table and Ex.2. Speak in the same way for Mongolia, Italy, Egypt, New Zealand, Great Britain and Belarus.
| Country | Climatic pattern | Control-ling factors | Precipita-tion level | Average tempera -ture ranges | Distin-guishing charac-teristics | Related features |
| Mongolia | dry (steppe) | inland country surroun- ded by moun -tains | lies in a rain shadow little precipita- tion | cold and dry winters (for 8 months) short and dry summers (for 4 months) | low humidity cold winds | the Gobi Desert (in the south) Forests and lakes (in the north) |
| Italy | Mediter-ranean (subtropical) | maritime influence | a lot of rainfall (from October to May) | warm winters (+90C) hot summers (+300C) | humid monsoon-al air move -ment in summer, cyclonic storms in winter | |
| Egypt | dry (desert) | coastal locations; inland | rare rainfall; in some places once in 2 or 3 years | hot summers (over +300C near the coast; over +400C inland) warm winters | the Arabian Desert; the Libyan desert | |
| New Zealand | oceanic | situated in the mid-latitude westerly wind belt and surroun-ded by the open ocean | rainfall from moderate to abundant; annual rainfall 1850 mm; heavy snowfalls in the South Island moun-tains | from +230C to +60C summer from December to February winter from June to August | temperate moist and maritime climate | subtropical vegeta-tion in the north (bush, mangrove swamps) forests and grassland in the south |
Ex. 4. Look through the text and explain the following statements.
· The climate of Great Britain has three main features: it is mild, humid and changeable.
· The British love talking about the weather.
· Doubtless, weather is the universal topic of conversation in every quarter of the world.
· If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.
· The English have three variants of weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon or when it rains all day long.
Ex. 5. Sum up the information you’ve learnt and compare the British and Belarusian climates.
Text C
Task. Scan the text and get ready to discuss its main points.
The World’s Inconstant Climate
The world’s climate is not and never has been constant. Climate, the long-term behaviour of weather, is inherently changeable. Not only are there gross changes over geological time scales (ice ages and interglacial warm periods) but smaller changes on much shorter time scales occur, too. Temperatures in Europe during the medieval warm period were on average 0,5 0 C warmer than they are now. But just two hundred years later it was a different story. The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were up to 1 0 cooler than today’s average temperatures. This was the time of the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’.
Recent climatic changes have been less marked1 than our changes in mental attitude, and our perception2 of the weather. During the 1980s there has been increasing concern3 that the weather has become more extreme, that the climate is changing for the worse, and that it’s man’s fault. This may be true, but there is no evidence4 to show that freak5 events are likely to become6 more frequent. It’s unlikely, for example, that major floods are occurring with any greater frequency than they have in the past, but modern reporting ensures7 that greater numbers of people are rapidly informed about such disasters. While freak weather is nothing new, it is a good talking-point when it does occur.
The 1780s experienced a historically interesting pattern of climatic variations which in some ways echo the changes now in evidence.8 Several extremes in temperature and rainfall during that decade resulted in9 extreme variability of the weather from year to year and season to season. The unstable climate began to be a major cause for concern. Complaints about sunless summers, prolonged winters, droughts and unseasonal frosts were the order of the day. Europe was experiencing the tail-end10 of the Little ice Age, and beginning to warm out of this cold period. But increased volcanic activity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries produced dust veils11 in the upper atmosphere which may have prolonged12 the cold spell. The two conflicting influences were possibly the cause of the extreme variability.
Although the dust veils probably had an overall effect of keeping global temperatures down by partially blocking and scattering the sun’s rays, it is not believed that volcanic activity was responsible for the climatic change which caused the Little Ice Age in the first place. Some scientists believe that the Little Ice Age could have been the result of13 changing solar output rather than dust in the atmosphere. The sun’s output probably varies by about 0,1% during the eleven-year solar cycle, and this fact has recently been related to sunspot activity; the fewer the sunspots, the less the sun’s output. There were very few sunspots during the seventeenth century, so this is the most likely cause for the cool period.
The next Ice Age is still in the distant future, and our present concern is for the climate during the coming hundreds, rather than thousands, of years. But human concern is unavoidable. If the current global warming trend continues, and if it is due to man’s activities, we could be creating major problems for our children. Climatic change is a natural phenomenon, but Man’s excessive burning of fossil fuels may have begun to create climatic14 changes of a magnitude15 unprecedented in human history.
Notes:
1. mark v – замечать
2. perception n – восприятие
3. concern n – беспокойство, тревога
4. evidence n – доказательство
5. freak adj – необычный, странный
6. … are likely to become … – вероятно станут
7. ensure v – обеспечивать, гарантировать
8. in evidence – заметный
9. result in – приводить к
10. tail-end n – окончание, заключительная часть
11. veil n – покров, завеса, пелена
12. ... may have prolonged … – возможно продлили
13. … could have been the result of …– возможно произошел в результате
14. … may have begun to create … – возможно спровоцировала появление
15. magnitude n –величина, размер
Ex. 1. Complete the table below.
| climatic change | origin of climatic change | historical pattern | consequences of climatic change |
Ex. 2. Draw a diagram of temperature variations described in the text and explain it.
Ex. 3. Five of the ten sentences below are accurate summaries of the five paragraphs in the text. Connect these five sentences to their appropriate paragraph.
| a) Europe was warmer 500 years ago. b) Unstable weather conditions, which occurred 200 years ago, are similar to conditions we experience today. c) Future climatic changes are at present a cause for concern, especially as we may be responsible for them. d) Man’s activities could produce a new Ice Age. e) Dust veils were mainly responsible for the Little Ice Age. | f) Unusual weather conditions are probably not on the increase, but we are much more aware of them. g) Reduced sunspot activity probably caused the Little Ice Age. h) The world’s climate has always been inconsistent. i) People exaggerate because they like talking about the weather. j) The weather was much worse in the 1780s than it is now. |
Ex. 4. Explain and expand on the following.
1. Climatic changes have been more extreme in recent years.
2. 1780s were the most significant in determining climatic changes.
3. Man is responsible for climatic changes.
Text D
Task. Scan the text. Choose the one best alternative to each question following it. Answer all questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in the text.