#8 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Except

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Sophia123]

Hi!

I am a bit stuck on this question because I thought A was the answer considering the passage discussed how the El Nino phenomenon could lead to a warming effect which ultimately masks the cooling effect. Therefore, I thought El Nino could not have had the effect of making the cooling effect to appear more pronounced than it actually is since it creates the effect of warming - where am I going wrong in this thought process?

Thank you in advance!

-Sophia

[Adam Tyson]

Let's return to the text for the answer here, Sophia:

In the process they tried to filter out temperature changes caused by the cyclic weather phenomenon known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, which warms the sea surface in the equatorial Pacific and thereby warms the atmosphere. Such warming can mask the cooling brought about by an eruption, but it can also mimic volcanic cooling if the volcano happens to erupt just as an El Nino- induced warm period is beginning to fade.

In these two lines we learn that El Nino is a cyclic warmer (answer C ), that it can mask the cooling effect of a volcano (answer B ) and can make the cooling effect of a volcano seem more pronounced (answer A). That last one is supported by the statement that "it can also mimic volcanic cooling". In other words, if a volcano erupts right around the time that El Nino is fading and not warming things up so much, the reduction in temperature that goes hand-in-hand with that fading effect might look like the volcanic eruption is making things colder. The temp was going down anyway - the volcanic eruption was just coincidentally timed with that temperature reduction.

Putting A and B together, along with the need to filter out the El Nino effect, collectively supports answer E, by the way.

I hope that helps!

[ashpine17]

I dont understand how mimicking is making it more pronounced though

[ashpine17]

doesn't mimicking mean to imitate? so the el nino effect is just like the volcanic cooling...how si that making it cooler?

[ashpine17]

i think i am perhaps misunderstanding what pronounced means
when it says the el nino effect mimicks cooling, does it mean it makes the volcanic cooling more pronounced as in it makes it seem like it's the volcano that's doing the cooling instead of the weather naturally gettting cooler on its own rather than the el nino making it colder that it is?

[Adam Tyson]

If the warming effect of El Nino is beginning to fade, that means things are getting cooler. If that happens at the same time as a volcano erupts, that can make it look like the volcano is causing things to cool down more than it actually is, because of the combined effect of what little cooling the volcano is causing and the natural cooling that happens at this part of the El Nino cycle.

So yes, "mimics" means imitates, but the third paragraph tells us that the El Nino effects were in some cases not just imitating volcanic cooling but were also making it look like the volcanic cooling was bigger (more pronounced) than it really was, because when you subtract the El Nino effects, it ends up looking like eruptions do less than previously thought.

[ashpine17]

how can el nino be a warming but also imitate cooling?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi ashpine17!

It seems like Adam's previous post provides an answer to this question, unless I'm misunderstanding your question. He notes, "If the warming effect of El Nino is beginning to fade, that means things are getting cooler."

To bolster his point, the stimulus discusses "the cyclic weather phenomenon known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation" (lines 19-21). El Niño comes and goes in cycles. The fading of a warming phenomenon suggests things are getting colder, as Adam indicates.

For more support and context directly from the passage, see lines 19-26. The fourth paragraph also discusses how a temperature drop (such as from the warmth of the El Niño cycle fading) could contribute to "amplifying the cooling."