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  3. Expending Earth’s remaining fossil fuels resources would eliminate the ice shelf in Antarctica and lead to dramatic global sea l

Expending Earth’s remaining fossil fuels resources would eliminate the ice shelf in Antarctica and lead to dramatic global sea l

admin2022-04-20  38
问题     Expending Earth’s remaining fossil fuels resources would eliminate the ice shelf in Antarctica and lead to dramatic global sea level rises, according to a new research. Sea levels around the world have been on the rise for years, but ice from Antarctica has contributed a relatively small fraction of water to that total. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows how that will change if humans continue to burn fossil fuels.
    Recent research suggests that fossil fuels—oil, coal and natural gas—sufficient to create more than 10,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide still remain on the planet. Each year human activity results in around 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions, a number which has risen swiftly in recent decades. And, while the numbers suggest the Earth has sufficient fossil fuels to supply humankind with energy for centuries, climate scientists say the climate change that would result from burning those fuels could remake the planet.
    The most dramatic results documented in the new study would occur over thousands of years. Only a small fraction of the Antarctic ice shelf would remain in 10,000 years if humans consumed remaining fossil fuels in the coming centuries. Were the Antarctic ice shelf to melt totally, global sea levels could rise more than 50 meters(164 feet).
    The study shows burning fossil fuels now creates effects that extend into the distant future because ice melt does grow linearly with carbon emissions. Study author Ricarda Winkelmann, a professor of climate systems analysis at the Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research, emphasized that ice melt in Antarctica thousands of years from now would be triggered by actions humans take in the much more immediate future. "It would take a long time for the entire ice sheet to vanish," she said. "But that doesn’t mean we can ignore it. "
    For this study, researchers evaluated the effects of climate change on Antarctica over the very long term. Other earlier research shows how climate change may alter the ice-covered continent in the coming decades. Melting from the continent’s ice has led to approximately a quarter of a millimeter of sea level rise each year between 1999 and 2019, according to a 2019 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That number is dwarfed by ice loss from glaciers and ice loss from Greenland. But that may not be the case for long.
    "Currently Antarctica is one of the minor contributors to sea level rise, and that’s simply because it responds more slowly," said Winkelmann. "If you look at the longer time scales, at some point it will become the key level rise when it comes to sea level rise. "
From the first paragraph, we can learn that the ice shelf in Antarctica________.
选项 A、has led to the dramatic rise of sea levels in recent years
B、has been on the rise for years
C、will diminish with the continuing burning of fossil fuels
D、has produced a small amount of water energy
答案C
解析 本题是细节题。根据题干定位至首段。首段首句指出，一项新的研究发现，如果将地球上剩余的化石燃料都消耗掉，将会使南极洲的冰层消失，说明，南极洲的冰层“将随着化石燃料的持续燃烧而消失”，故答案选C。根据首段第二句中提到的“南极洲的冰层只贡献了相对较少的一部分水量”可排除A项“近年来导致了海平面的巨大上升”；首段第二句中提到了“全世界的海平面多年来一直在持续上升”，而不是南极洲的冰层“多年来一直持续上升”，故排除B项；南极洲的冰层融化只为海平面的上升提供了少量水，并不等同于“只产生少量的水能”，故排除D项。
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