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  3. The 17 trillion US gallons of rain, roughly 26m Olympic swimming pools, dumped on Texas by Hurricane Harvey has set a new high f

The 17 trillion US gallons of rain, roughly 26m Olympic swimming pools, dumped on Texas by Hurricane Harvey has set a new high f

admin2018-03-26  12
问题    The 17 trillion US gallons of rain, roughly 26m Olympic swimming pools, dumped on Texas by Hurricane Harvey has set a new high for a tropical system in the US, but it is unlikely to last long as rising man-made emissions push the global climate deeper into uncharted territory.
   Images of flooded streets in Texas are mirrored by scenes of inundated(洪泛的)communities in India and Bangladesh, the recent mudslides in Sierra Leone and last month’s deadly overflow of a Yangtze tributary(支流)in China. In part, these calamities are seasonal. In part, the impact depends on local factors. But scientists tell us such extremes are likely to become more common and more devastating as a result of rising global temperatures and increasingly intense rainfall.
   Our planet is in an era of unwelcome records. For each of the past three years, temperatures have hit peaks not seen since the birth of meteorology(气象学), and probably not for more than 110,000 years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is at its highest level in 4m years. This does not cause storms like Harvey—there have always been storms and hurricanes at this time of year along the Gulf of Mexico—but it makes them wetter and more powerful.
   " For large countries like the United States, we can expect further rainfall records—and not just for hurricanes," said Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. This is part of a wider trend. "For the globe, we’ll see heat and extreme rainfall records fall for the foreseeable future," she predicted. She cautioned that the situation is likely to be different from country to country. Many factors are involved, but human impact on the climate has added to the tendency for more severe droughts and fiercer storms.
   A key focus now is whether climate change is connected to the " stalling" of storms. In the US, hurricanes usually move inland and diminish in power as they get further from the sea. Harvey, however, was stationary for several days—which is the main factor in its rainfall record.
   Scientists have said this may be the single biggest question posed by Harvey. Researchers have recently identified a slowdown of atmospheric summer circulation in the mid-latitudes as a result of strong warming in the Arctic. But such studies of pressure patterns need more powerful analytical tools, including supercomputers.
   In the US, however, such research has become highly politicised. President Donald Trump has announced that the US will pull out of the Paris climate treaty and cut funding for related research. " It shouldn’t be a political matter to try to understand how much more frequent events like Harvey will become in the future," said Tim Palmer, a professor at the University of Oxford. "It appalls me how basic science has become involved in politics like this. "
Which of the following statements may Otto agree with?
选项 A、Storms and hurricanes have been getting stronger and wetter.
B、More extreme temperatures and rainfall may come in future.
C、It is not clear what factors may be involved in climate change.
D、Hurricanes in the US tend to come into being in inland areas.
答案B
解析 推理判断题。本题考查对奥托的观点的理解。定位段第一句提到，奥托认为在美国这样的大国，还会出现更高的降水记录，而随后一句中继续论述称，在可预知的未来，全球范围内酷暑和极端降雨记录还会刷新，可见她认为从现在开始，可能会出现更多的极端气温与降水，故答案为B)。A)“风暴和飓风将会变得更加剧烈和湿润”是作者在第三段的论述，但文章并没有依据能说明奥托是否赞成这个看法，故排除；C)“目前尚不清楚气候变化与哪些因素有关”，定位段末句说到极端天气与众多因素有关，但并没有说人类对这些因素不了解，故排除；D)“美国的飓风往往在内陆地区生成”是对第五段第二句的曲解，原文是说美国飓风会转移至内陆，而不是在内陆生成，故排除。
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