Correct Response: A. One of the strongest hypotheses of the climatologists studying climate change and the predictions of climate models is that weather events will become more extreme. This means longer and more severe droughts for some areas already prone to drought, such as the Southwest, while other regions typically prone to seasonal flooding, such as the Ohio River Valley, can expect more intense floods more often. Climate models suggest that the decreased equator-to-pole temperature gradient will actually make weather systems more persistent as the jet stream slows (B) and hurricanes are more likely to increase in frequency than decrease as sea-surface temperatures increase (C). El Niño events are precipitated by major changes in the oceans and atmosphere and climate models have not indicated that the intervals at which they occur (D) will change significantly as a result of global warming.
