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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  48
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. "
It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that in the past 20 years________.
选项 A、the continent’s ice has melted faster than ever before
B、the speed of sea level rise has become slower
C、ice loss from glaciers has been one of the major contributors to sea level rise
D、the continent’s ice melting has led to a dramatic rise of sea level
答案C
解析 本题是推断题。根据题干定位至第五段。该段第三句提到，报告显示，在1999年到2019年期间(与题干中的in the past 20 years相呼应)，陆地冰层的融化平均每年导致海平面上升四分之一毫米。该数字与冰川冰层融化量和格陵兰岛冰层融化量相比微不足道。说明，在过去的20年间，冰川冰层融化和格陵兰岛冰层融化所导致的海平面上升幅度要比陆地冰层大很多，可推知“冰川融化是海平面上升的主要原因之一”，故答案选C，同时排除 D项“陆地冰层融化导致了海平面的巨大上升”；A项“陆地冰层的融化速度比以往都快”和B项“海平面上升的速度变慢”在文中均未提及，故排除。
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