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  3. Earth’s North and South Poles ale famous for being cold and icy. Last year, however, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean feU t

Earth’s North and South Poles ale famous for being cold and icy. Last year, however, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean feU t

admin2012-06-27  41
问题     Earth’s North and South Poles ale famous for being cold and icy. Last year, however, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean feU to a record low.
    Normally, ice builds in Arctic waters around the North Pole each winter and shrinks during the summer. But for many years, the amount of ice left by the end of summer has been declining.
    Since 1979, each decade has seen an 11. 4 percent drop in end of summer ice cover. Betweenl981 and 2000, ice in the Arctic lost 22 percent of its thickness, becoming 1. 13 meters thinner.
    Last summer, Arctic sea ice reached its skimpiest levels yet. By the end of summer 2007, theice had shrunk to cover just 4. 2 million square kilometers. That’s 38 percent less area than the average cover at that time of year. And it’s a very large 23 percent below the previous record low, which was set just 2 years ago. This continuing trend has scientists concerned.
    There may be several reasons for the ice melt, says Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the University of Washington at Seattle. Unusually strong winds blew through the Arctic last summer. The winds pushed much of the ice out of the central Arctic, leaving a large area of thin ice and open water.
    Scientists also suspect that fewer clouds cover the Arctic now than in the past, Clearer skies allow more sunlight to reach the ocean. The extra heat warnls both the water and the atmosphere. In parts of the Arctic Ocean last year, surface temperatures were 3. 5℃ warmer than average and 1. 5℃ warmer than the previous record high.
    With both air and water getting warmer, the ice is melting from both above and below. In some Darts of the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska and western Canada, ice that measured 3. 3 meters thick at the beginning of the summer measured just 50 centimeters by season’s end.
    The new measurements suggest that melting is far more severe than scientists have seen by just looking at ice cover from above, says Donald K. Perovich, a geophysicist at the U. S. Army ColdRegions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N. H.
    Some scientists fear that the Arctic is stuck in a wanning trend from which it may never recover.
What are the reasons for the ice melting according to the scientists?
选项 A、strong winds and clear skies
B、long summer and short winter
C、open water and thin ice
D、light clouds and light winds
答案A
解析 细节题。利用reason可以定位第五段的最后一句话和第六段的第一、二句话说明了科学家们推测冰川融化的原因，一为强风；二为较少的云，即clear skies，所以答案为A。
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