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  3. The world’s leading climate scientists have set out in detail for the first time how much more carbon dioxide humans can pour in

The world’s leading climate scientists have set out in detail for the first time how much more carbon dioxide humans can pour in

admin2015-04-29  94
问题     The world’s leading climate scientists have set out in detail for the first time how much more carbon dioxide humans can pour into the atmosphere without triggering dangerous levels of climate change—and concluded that more than half of mat global allowance has been used up.
    If people continue to emit greenhouse gases at current rates, the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere could mean that within as little as two to three decades the world will face nearly inevitable warming of more than 2℃, resulting in rising sea levels, heatwaves, droughts and more extreme weather.
    This calculation of the world’s "carbon budget" was one of the most striking findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), the expert panel of global scientists who on Friday produced the most comprehensive assessment yet of our knowledge of climate change at the end of their four-day meeting in Stockholm.
    The 2,000-plus page report, written by 209 lead authors, also found it was "unequivocal" that global warming was happening as a result of human actions, and that without "substantial and sustained" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions we will breach the symbolic threshold of2℃ of warming, which governments around the world have pledged not to do.
    John Kerry, the US secretary of state, said in a statement: "This is yet another wakeup call: those who deny me science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire. "
    " Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or commonsense should be willing to even contemplate," he added.
    The IPCC also rebuffed me argument made by climate sceptics that a "pause" for the last 10 -15 years in the upward climb of global temperatures was evidence of flaws in their computer models. In the summary for policymakers, published on Friday morning after days of deliberations in the Swedish capital, me scientists said: " Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at me Earth’s surface man any preceding decade since 1850. In the northern hemisphere, 1983 -2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years. "
    Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the report working group, said measuring recent years in comparison to 1998, an exceptionally hot year, was misleading and that temperature trends could only be observed over longer periods, of about 30 years.
    Natural variability was cited as one of the reasons for warming being less pronounced in the last 15 years, and the role of the oceans in absorbing heat, which is still poorly understood.
    "There are not sufficient observations of the uptake of heat, particularly into the deep ocean, that will be one of the possible mechanisms that would explain this warming hiatus(间断)," said Stocker.
The purpose of this passage is likely to______.
选项 A、warn people about the effects of carbon emissions
B、reveal the IPCC’s major findings in "carbon budget"
C、explain the symbolic threshold of 2℃ of warming
D、refute sceptics’ argument about climate change
答案A
解析 主旨题。文章首段气象科学家指出了二氧化碳的排放限度，接着指出现已耗掉了过半的排放额度，以这种趋势看来很容易突破2℃的临界点，并指出可能带来的后果，这些发现为人类敲响了警钟。由此看来，本文的目的在于提醒人们警惕温室气体排放可能带来的后果，故[A]符合文意。
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