tailieunhanh - IELTS Academic Reading 25

Với IELTS Academic Reading 25 sẽ giúp các bạn ôn tập củng cố lại kiến thức và kỹ năng giải bài tập để chuẩn bị cho kỳ thi sắp tới đạt được kết quá mong muốn. Mời các bạn tham khảo. | IELTS Academic Reading 25 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-15 which are based on Reading Passage 25 below. TRACKING HURRICANES North American meteorologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA s Hurricane Research Division have recently improved the success rate in their forecasting of where hurricanes are likely to hit land by an estimated 15 to 30 . This increase in accuracy is due to the use of instruments called GPS-dropwindsondes which can probe the atmosphere surrounding a hurricane while it is still out at sea. The atmospheric characteristics of hurricanes over land are well understood because investigation is possible with weather balloons containing sophisticated meteorological instruments. When hurricanes are out of reach of balloons gathering information is decidedly more difficult. Little is known of the weather conditions that guide hurricanes towards land. An accurate estimation of where a hurricane will strike is essential in order to reduce loss of life and property. Hurricane Andrew the most costly hurricane in . history killed 15 people and caused damage of 35 billion in today s dollars in 1992. However the unnamed Category 4 2 hurricane which struck southeast Florida in 1926 and killed 243 people would have caused an estimated 77 billion if it had struck today. The reason for this is the explosion in population growth and development along the south-east coast of the . during the last half century. Hurricanes occur in cycles every few decades the last intense period in the . being from 1940 to 1969. Camille a Category 5 hurricane of such catastrophic force that it caused over a billion and a half dollars worth of damage at the time and killed 256 people struck the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 1969 with winds over 320 km h. Yet for the last quarter century hurricane activity has been relatively mild. Scientists do not know the precise reason for the cycles of hurricane activity but they could .