Индивидуальное домашнее задание № 2

по дисциплине иностранный (английский) язык

Вариант №

Выполнил студент……………………………………………

курс, группа, фамилия, имя, отчество

Руководитель…………………………….…………………….

должность, звание, фамилия, имя, отчество

Волгодонск, 2010г.

Вариант I

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WHAT KIND OF WINTER WILL IT BE?

To answer the question, "What kind of weather will we have next winter?" is an entirely different kind of problem from saying what the weather will be like in New York or Boston tomorrow or the next day.

What makes the problem so different?

First, the daily forecast envisions the continuing development over a short period of time of a relatively local (perhaps nationwide) weather pattern. The detailed initial conditions and the important ingredients are well known by current observation. More distant conditions or physical factors do not have time to make their influences felt within a day or two.

The seasonal forecast, on the other hand, is intimately dependent on the complete hemispheric weather pattern. The average state or the nature of the weather activity in one locality can be treated in no sense as an isolated local problem. Furthermore, there is no continuous progressive development of a large-scale pattern over longer periods as there is over a short term locally.

Specific local forecasts of the day-to-day weather changes can be made almost scientifically for a day or two ahead. However, the accuracy of such forecasts falls off rapidly with time, as more distant conditions and weather control factors begin to make their effects felt in relatively unknown ways. No one to date has demonstrated ability to forecast local day-to-day weather changes with any significant degree of skill more than four or five days ahead. It follows that monthly or seasonal forecasts cannot accurately predict short-period weather fluctuations.

No "scientific" seasonal forecasting is possible. There is not even general agreement among meteorologists as to what long-term "weather control factors" make the large-scale weather behavior patterns of one winter or one summer season so different from another, let alone how to incorporate the understanding of any such factors into "scientific" seasonal forecasting.

For a long time to come, seasonal weather forecasts will be based on a statistical or pattern analogy. This is done by comparing the current and recent behavior of the general circulation and weather on a hemispheric scale with similar behavior in corresponding periods in the past. We thus have empirical as opposed to scientific forecasting. However, insofar as the basic long-term weather "control" factors can be surmised or identified, the current state of these factors can be included, at least in a qualitative sense, in the comparative analogy.

The seasonal forecasts themselves are bound to be general and broad, in the form of mean states or trends of the weather activity over large geographical areas without much local detail. Only if the selected analog of the current period shows good similarity in the month-to-month progression of the large-scale weather behavior patterns is there any basis on which to hazard a guess as to the probable month-to-month progression of the large-scale seasonal weather abnormalities or trends.

We are working on the solar-weather analog approach to the preparation of a weather forecast for the two or three seasons ahead. Three basic steps are involved:

1. The selection of the two or three years in the past when the behavior of the hemispheric general circulation and weather patterns-were most similar to (best analogs of) the currently terminating season and the two preceding seasons.

2. The comparison of solar (sunspot) activity and any other possible long-term factors of "weather control" during the current year with the behavior of the same factors during the two or three selected analog years, to narrow down the choice to that of a single best analog year for the current year.

3. Use of the large-scale weather patterns during the following two or three seasons of the selected analog year as an indication of the expected development during the current year. Modifications of the development of the analog year may be made on the basis of important differences of the current large-scale weather patterns, or of solar activity, or of other possible control factors from the corresponding conditions in the analog year.

We select the two or three analog years which correspond best to the current year in the large-scale weather patterns of the northern hemisphere. This is the most important step in the analog selection. We have on file the complete northern hemispheric seasonal mean charts of departure from normal of sea-level pressure, of upper-level pressure and of temperature for every season from 1899 to the present. These charts give a complete picture, season by season, of the abnormalities of the northern hemispheric patterns of wind circulation and of temperature for the 63-year period.