首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Meteorologists routinely tell us what next week’s weather is likely to be, and climate scientists discuss what might happen in 1
Meteorologists routinely tell us what next week’s weather is likely to be, and climate scientists discuss what might happen in 1
admin
2009-08-13
71
问题
Meteorologists routinely tell us what next week’s weather is likely to be, and climate scientists discuss what might happen in 100 years. Christoph Schar, though, ventures dangerously close to that middle realm, where previously only the Farmer’s Almanac dared go, what will next summer’s weather be like? Following last year’s tragic heat wave, which directly caused the death of tens of thousands of people, the question is of burning interest to Europeans. Schar asserts that last summer’s sweltering temperatures should no longer be thought of as extraordinary. "The situation in 2002 and 2003 in Europe, where we had a summer with extreme rainfall and record flooding followed by the hottest summer in hundreds of years, is going to be typical for future weather patterns," he says.
Most Europeans have probably never read Sehar’s report (not least because it was published in the scientific journal Nature in the dead of winter) but they seem to be bracing themselves for the worst. As part of its new national "heat-wave plan", France issued a level-three alert when temperatures in Provence reached 34 degrees Celsius three days in a row; hospital and rescue workers were asked to prepare for an influx of patients. Italian government officials have proposed creating a national registry of people over 65 so they can be herded into air-conditioned supermarkets in the event of another heat wave. London’s mayor has offered a 100,000 pound reward for anybody who can come up with a practical way of cooling the city’s underground trains, where temperatures have lately reached nearly 40 degrees Celsius. (The money hasn’t been claimed.) Global warming seems to have permanently entered the European psyche.
If the public is more aware, though, experts are more confused. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hammered out its last assessment in 2001, scientists pulled together the latest research and made their best estimate of how much the Earth’s atmosphere would warm during the next century. There was a lot they didn’t know, but they were confident they’d be able to plug the gaps in time for the next report, due out in 2007. When they explored the fundamental physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, though, they found something unexpected: the way the atmosphere—and, in particular, clouds—respond to increasing levels of carbon is far more complex and difficult to predict than they had expected. "We thought we’d reduce the uncertainty, but that hasn’t happened," says Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author of the next IPCC report. "As we delve further and further into the science and gain a better understanding of the true complexity of the atmosphere, the uncertainties have gotten deeper."
This doesn’t mean, of course, that the world isn’t warming. Only the biased or the deluded deny that temperatures have risen, and that human activity has something to do with it. The big question that scientists have struggled with is how much warming will occur over the next century? With so much still unknown in the climate equation, there’s no way of telling whether warnings of catastrophe are overblown or if things are even more dire than we thought.
Why do scientists like Schar make predictions? Because, like economists, it’s their job to hazard a best guess with the resources at hand-namely, vast computer programs that simulate what the Earth’s atmosphere will do in certain circumstances. These models incorporate all the latest research into how the Earth’s atmosphere behaves. But there are problems with the computer models. The atmosphere is very big, but also consists of a multitude of tiny interactions among particles of dust, soot, cloud droplets and trace gases that cannot be safely ignored. Current models don’t have nearly the resolution they need to capture what goes on at such small scales.
Scientists got an inkling that something was missing from the models in the early 1990s when they ran a peculiar experiment. They had the leading models simulate warming over the next century and got a similar answer from each. Then they ran the models again-this time accounting for what was then known about cloud physics.
选项
A、climate scientists are contemptuous of weather forecast.
B、it is a venture to forecast what weather is like tomorrow.
C、Schar has the audacity to do what others seldom do.
D、Schar has made gloomy predictions on future weather.
答案
C
解析
本题是推断题。首段首句指出气象学家和气候工作者的区别,后者讨论100年后的气候情况。[A]属于过度推断,排除。第二句指出:Christoph Schar, though, ventures dangerously close to that middle realm,这里的middle realm指后面提到的next summer’s weather,[B]不符合文意。该句中的“where previously only the Farmer’s Almanac dared go”表明Schar敢于尝试人们很少敢做的事,[C]符合文意,故为答案。末句指出Schar的预测:a summer with extreme rainfall and record flooding... is going to be typical for future weather patterns,这只是他的客观预测,没有主观色彩,gloomy没有根据,排除[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/3IvO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Whichofthefollowingstatementsisthebesttitleforthepassage?
Accordingtopsychologists,acompulsivespenderwantstospendalotofmoneybecause:
KansasandIowa,richinwindresources,canprovidemoreelectricitythanotherstates.
TheincreasingnumberoftheunaccompaniedchildrenacrosstheU.S.borderpresstheUnitedStatestodetainmoreandmorechil
Alllivingcellsonearthrequiremoisturefortheirmetabolism.Cerealgrainswhenbroughtinfromthefield,althoughtheymay
工作面试是双向选择的过程。一方面,雇主会在交谈中衡量人围名单中的少量候选人,另一方面,准雇员也会考虑眼前的这份工作是否适合他。关键词汇:shortlisted:上名单的人不多;candidate:候选人;prospective:未来的;inquesti
我们在线课程是对那些刚刚登记的学生公开的,它包括了学生学习中需要的所有东西。我们的学生既喜欢它的质量也喜欢它的便捷。这句话不是很难,里面的单词也比较简单,如果能把第一句话听懂,差不多就没什么问题了。enrollment:登记的学生,报名的学生。
ThemanMr.Cheneyaccidentallyshotandinjuredis
ThemanMr.Cheneyaccidentallyshotandinjuredis
A、Thisattackhappened10daysafterthesuicidesbombingsinLondon.B、Allthevictimsinjuredweresenttothenearbyhospital
随机试题
多彩涂料,通常被认定为()材料。
十字滑块联轴器适用于____________场合。
外伤引起的椎体压缩性骨折X线片多见于
同时患有支气管哮喘的高血压患者不能使用下列哪种降压药物
我国2004年的宪法修正案涉及下列哪些方面的内容?
在建设工程施工方案一定的前提下,工程费用会因工期的不同而不同。随着工期的缩短,工程费用的变化趋势是()。
论述教育过程中师生关系的构成。
紧随某个行为之后所发生的事件(行为之结果),使得该行为再次出现的可能性增加,行为受其结果的影响不断增加的现象,称为强化。根据上述定义,下列不属于强化的是:
A.条件(1)充分,但条件(2)不充分.B.条件(2)充分,但条件(1)不充分.C.条件(1)和(2)单独都不充分,但条件(1)和(2)联合起来充分.D.条件(1)充分,条件(2)也充分.E.条件(1)和(2)单独都不充分,条件(1)和(2)联合起
一张软磁盘上存储的内容,在该盘处于什么情况时,其中数据可能丢失?
最新回复
(
0
)