托福阅读机经真题The Climate of Japan 真题+答案

类别：环境类

真题140427CN-P2

Title：The Climate of Japan

At the most general level, two major climatic forces determine Japan’s weather.Prevailing westerly winds move across Eurasia, sweep over the Japanese islands, andcontinue eastward across the Pacific Ocean. In addition, great cyclonic airflows(masses of rapidly circulating air) that arise over the western equatorial Pacific movein a wheel-like fashion northeastward across Japan and nearby regions. During wintermonths heavy masses of cold air from Siberia dominate the weather around Japan.Persistent cold winds skim across the Sea of Japan from the northwest, picking up moisture that they deposit as several feet of snow on the western side of the mountain ranges on Honshu Island. As the cold air drops its moisture, it flows overhigh ridges and down eastern slopes to bring cold, relatively dry weather to valleysand coastal plains and cities.

In spring the Siberian air mass warms and loses density, enabling atmosphericcurrents over the Pacific to steer warmer air into northeast Asia. This warm, moisture-laden air covers most of southern Japan during June and July. The resulting late spring rains then give way to a drier summer that is sufficiently hot and muggy, despite the island chain’s northerly latitude, to allow widespread rice cultivation.

Summer heat is followed by the highly unpredictable autumn rains that accompanythe violent tropical windstorms known as typhoons. These cyclonic storms originate over the western Pacific and travel in great clockwise arcs, initially heading westtoward the Philippines and southern China, curving northward later in the season. Cold weather drives these storms eastward across Japan through early autumn,revitalizing the Siberian air mass and ushering in a new annual weather cycle.

This yearly cycle has played a key role in shaping Japanese civilization. It has assuredthe islands ample precipitation, ranging irregularly from more than 200 centimeters annually in parts of the southwest to about 100 in the northeast and averaging 180for the country as a whole. The moisture enables the islands to support uncommonlylush forest cover, but the combination of precipitous slopes and heavy rainfall alsogives the islands one of the world’s highest rates of natural erosion, intensified byboth human activity and the natural shocks of earthquakes and volcanism. Thesefactors have given Japan its wealth of sedimentary basins, but they have also made mountainsides extremely susceptible to erosion and landslides and hence generally unsuitable for agricultural manipulation.

The island chain’s mountains backbone and great length from north to southproduce climatic diversity that has contributed to regional differences. Generallysunny winters along the Pacific seaboard have made habitation there relativelypleasant. Along the Sea of Japan, on the other hand, cold, snowy winters have discouraged settlement. Furthermore, although annual precipitation is high in thatregion, much of it comes as snow and rushes to the sea as spring runoff, leaving little moisture for farming.

Summer weather patterns in northern Honshu, and especially along the Sea of Japan,have also discouraged agriculture. The area is subject to the yamase effect, when coolair from the north sometimes lowers temperatures sharply and damages farm production. The impact of this effect has been especially great on rice cultivation because, if it is to grow well, the rice grown in Japan requires a mean summertemperature of 20° centigrade or higher. A drop of 2°-3° can lead to a 30-50 percentdrop in rice yield, and the yamase effect is capable of exceeding that level. Thisyamase effect does not, however, extend very far south, where most precipitation comes in the form of rain and the bulk of it in spring, summer, and fall, when most useful for cultivation. Even the autumn typhoons, which deposit most of theirmoisture along the southern seaboard, are beneficial because they promote the start of the winter crops that for centuries have been grown in southern Japan.

In short, for the past two millennia, the climate in general and patterns of precipitation in particular have encouraged the Japanese to cluster their settlementsalong the southern coast, most densely along the sheltered Inland Sea, moving intothe northeast. There the limits that topography imposed on production have been tightened by climate, with the result that agricultural output has been more modestand less reliable, making the risk of crop failure and hardship commensuratelygreater.