Reading Comprehension

PT106 · S4 · P2 · Q11 Volcanoes

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Long after the lava has cooled, the effects of a major volcanic eruption may linger on.

Topic

The lingering climate effects of major volcanic eruptions and how they influence global and regional temperatures.

Framework

Present Debate

Main Point

While volcanic eruptions are thought to cool Earth's climate, recent research suggests the cooling effect is smaller and more complicated than previously believed, with global impacts being minor but potential for larger regional effects due to feedback loops. (The “most valuable sentence” encapsulating the main point appears in P3: )

P1: Common Belief about Volcanic Eruptions

After a big volcano erupts, the dust and acid it throws into the air can cool the planet by blocking sunlight—some even blame Tambora’s 1815 eruption for an entire summer without warm weather in 1816.

P2: New Findings Challenge Conventional Wisdom

Scientists Mass and Portman say this connection isn’t quite as strong as we think. By analyzing global temperatures around nine eruptions—while accounting for El Niño’s effects—they find the supposed volcanic cooling can be tricky to pin down.

P3: Refining the Evidence—What Eruptions Really Do

Once they filtered out El Niño, they saw that smaller eruptions don’t noticeably affect temperatures, and even huge eruptions only slightly cool the hemisphere—much less than earlier studies had claimed.

11.

The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which one of the following hypotheses?

  1. Major volcanic eruptions sometimes cause

    Opposite, if anything

    The end of the 3rd paragraph reports that a major eruption is expected to cause "only half a degree or less" of cooling. This answer is saying that a major eruption sometimes causes "more than a whole degree" of cooling.

    11% picked this

  2. Major volcanic eruptions can induce

    Unsupported Causal Relationship: induce

    Nothing in the passage ever suggested that volcanoes themselves can trigger an El Niño phenomenon. It's identified as a "cyclic weather phenomenon". It happens every x years, whether there's a volcano or not.

    6% picked this

  3. Correct

    Major volcanic eruptions do not

    Why this is right

    This reflects our updated understanding of the volcano cooling effect. The OLD view (1st paragraph) was that volcanoes could have caused the "year without a summer". The NEW view is that volcanoes actually don't have a major cooling effect on global temps (we were overestimating the effect volcanoes had because we were failing to account for the fact that El Niño was skewing the data). The final paragraph explains how a major volcanic eruption could indirectly lead to an unusually cold summer, but the direct cooling of the eruption is a maximum of 0.5º in the hemisphere where it occurred. Suppose we say: A causes B, and then B causes C, and C causes D. A directly causes B. A indirectly causes C and D.

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

  4. The climatic effects of minor

    Opposite, if anything Relative vs. Absolute

    This idea is basically contradicted, although it's somewhat hard to read this answer without hearing two different meanings to the word 'degree'. When we say something like "Jim's infraction differs from Mary's infraction only in degree", we mean something like, "Yes, they both cheated on the quiz by copying other students' answers, but Jim only copied a couple answers whereas Mary copied the entire quiz". It's the same kind of thing, but to a different extent / magnitude. We can't apply that to minor vs. major eruptions. We're told in the 3rd paragraph that, minor eruptions have no discernible effect on temperature vs. major eruptions cause only half a degree or less of temperature drop If minor eruptions caused half a degree of cooling and major eruptions caused 2-3 degrees of cooing, then we could say "Their climatic effects are different only in terms of degree". They both cause cooling, but to a different extent / magnitude. But 0 vs. something is not two different degrees. It's not a Relative issue of degree. It's on/off. It's Absolute.

    8% picked this

  5. El Niño has no discernible

    Opposite, if anything

    We're told in the 2nd paragraph that El Niño "warms the sea surface in the equatorial Pacific and thereby warms the atmosphere". Plus, the whole main point of this passage is that we have an updated understanding of how volcanoes affect average hemispheric temperature, because we've filtered out the effect of El Niño.

    2% picked this

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