A. BELIEVES B. UNDERSTANDS C. THINKS D. REALIZESREAD THE FOLLOWING...

50. A. believes B. understands C. thinks D. realizesRead the following two passages and choose the correct answer to each question.Every year in late December, a southward-moving current warms the water along thePacific coast of Peru. Because the warm current arrives around Christmas, the Peruviansnamed it El Nino, “boychild”. Until the mid 1970s,El Nino was an unrecognised local phenomenon, until scientists began to realise that ElNino, later named El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is part of a huge ocean andatmosphere system that is felt as far away as Australia and Indonesia.Every few years the El Nino current is warmer than normal, causing greater oceanwarming and consequently changes in the normal patterns of sea and surfacetemperatures. The resulting changes in atmospheric pressure affect trade wind speeds andthe location of the largest thunderstorms, thus affecting weather patterns around theworld. The shift in location of the Pacific’s largest thunderstorms, which usually occurfrom the Western Pacific to the Central Pacific, changes global weather patterns becausethe thunderstorms pump air into the atmosphere in different places than normal. Theresult is a shift in the location of high – and low-pressure areas, wind patterns, and thepaths followed by storms.From 1982 to 1983 the El Nino condition caused greater than average precipitation alongthe US West Coast and sent five hurricanes to French Polynesia, which normally goesyears without hurricanes. That same year, El Nino was linked to floods in Louisiana,Florida, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and to droughts in Hawaii, Mexico, SouthernAfrica, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.In response to the 1982 – 83 global weather disruption, the World MeteorologicalOrganization initiated the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program. Thegoal of the 10-year program is to gain a better understanding of El Nino so scientists canforecast future El Nino episodes and their likely results.