Variant 3. Variant 4

Variant 3

CLМАТЕ AND NATURAL RESOURCES

The United States of America is a very diverse country.

Its nature, climate, population varies from the East Coast to the west, from the northern border to the southern.

Climate is mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the southwest.

Natural resources include coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, and timber.

Natural hazards are a great deal of problems for the USA. Every year, they loose hundred millions of dollars, because of natural hazards. The USA is famous for hurricanes along the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico coasts and tornadoes in the Midwest and southeast; mud slides in California; forest fires in the west; flooding. Sometimes there are tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes happen. Earthquakes are very often in California.

Talking about environment, one should add that air pollution results in acid rains in both the US and Canada. The US is the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Water pollution from runoff of pesticides and fertilizers takes place here.

Variant 4

CLIМАТЕ IN THE USA

The USA is the fourth largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada and China. Including the states of Alaska and Hawaii, the US covers an area of 9 millions square km.

I am going to tell you about the climate in the USA. The United States has many kinds of climate. The weather ranges from the warm, wet conditions of the Appalachians to the semi-desert or desert conditions in some of the western states. It varies from southern Arizona and southern Florida, where almost there is no winter at all, to the territory of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, where there are long, very cold and severe winters. In other words, the US has practically all the climatic zones.

The main land mass of the US is in the temperate zone. The climatic conditions of the country are determined by the great mountains and the wind. West of the Rocky Mountains, running all the way from the Canadian border to Mexico, there are vast areas where almost no trees grow. In this section of the country there are deserts, which receive as little as 12-13 centimeters of rainfall a year. Yet, west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, there are places in which 250 centimeters of rain fall annually. It is one of the wettest places in the USA.

There are all kinds of differences in the .climate of the US. For instance, all along the western coast, the temperature changes little between winter and summer. In some places, the average difference between July and January is as little as 10 degrees Centigrade. The climate along the northern part of this coast is similar to that of England. But in the north central part of the country the temperature difference between winter and summer is very great — 36 degrees Centigrade and even more.

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