冰原的異常融化

山東 李全忠

主題語境：氣候

篇幅：330詞

建議用時(shí)：6分鐘

Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland have triggered (引起)rapid melting.Temperatures have been running around 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year,scientists said.

The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and July 17 alone—6 billion tons of water per day—would be enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools,according to data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.Put another way,it was enough to cover the entire state of West Virginia with a foot of water.

For the scientists out on the ice sheet,the warmth has been alarming.“It definitely worries me,”said Kutalmis Saylam,a research scientist at the University of Texas who is currently stationed in Greenland.“Yesterday we could wander around in our T-shirts—that was not really expected.”Greenland holds enough ice—if it all melted—to lift sea level by 7.5 meters around the world.

In 2020,scientists found that Greenland's ice sheet had melted beyond the point of no return.“No efforts to stave off global warming can stop it from eventually breaking down,”said researchers at The Ohio State University.

Aslak Grinsted,a climate scientist,said that they have been trying to get flights into the camp so they can ship out the ice cores they have recently collected.But the warmth is destabilizing the landing site.

“The temperatures we are seeing right now are simply too hot for the ski-equipped planes to land,”Grinsted said.“So we store the ice cores in large artificial caves we have made into the snow to protect it from the heat of the summer.”Scientists took advantage of the abnormal warmth while they were waiting,playing volleyball in their shorts on an ice sheet at the top of the world.

Grinsted referred to the temperatures as a“heat wave”,and noted that the chance of temperatures getting this hot was clearly linked to global warming.

Reading Check

1.Why does the author mention Olympic-sized swimming pools?

A.To introduce an Olympic winter game on ice.

B.To warn people of staying away from melting ice.

C.To say the body of melting ice in Greenland is huge.

D.To provide examples of melting ice's harmful results.

2.What does Kutalmis Saylam think of the warmth?

A.It is worrying.

B.It is puzzling.

C.It is surprising.

D.It is encouraging.

3.Which can replace the underlined word“destabilizing”in paragraph 5?

A.Contacting. B.Destroying.

C.Improving. D.Rescuing.

4.Why did the author write the text?

A.To comment on strategies.

B.To discuss a surprising impression.

C.To call on people to protect the environment.

D.To attract more scientists to Greenland.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

Aslak Grinsted,a climate scientist,said that they have been trying to get flights into the camp so they can ship out the ice cores they have recently collected.氣候?qū)W家阿斯拉克·格林斯泰德說，他們一直在試圖讓飛機(jī)飛到營地，這樣他們就可以把最近收集到的冰芯運(yùn)出營地。

【點(diǎn)石成金】本句是一個(gè)主從復(fù)合句，句中的a climate scientist 是Aslak Grinsted 的同位語；句中的that 引導(dǎo)賓語從句，作動(dòng)詞said 的賓語；so 是并列連詞，連接兩個(gè)并列的句子。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

ice sheet 冰原；冰蓋

wander around 徘徊；溜達(dá)

stop...from 阻止……發(fā)生

ship sth out 運(yùn)出某物

protect...from 保護(hù)

take advantage of 利用

play volleyball 打排球

link...to 把……和……聯(lián)系起來；連接