Record-breaking. Abnormal. Dangerous. That’s how the National Weather Service described the heat wave hitting much of North America.
The heat wave has already broken all-time high temperature records in places unaccustomed to such extreme heat. For example, Oregon’s capital city, Salem, recorded the highest temperature in its history on Sunday: 130F, breaking the old mark by 4 degrees. The temperature hit 104F in Seattle. It was an all-time record for the city better known for rain than heat and was the first time the area reached such a high temperature since records began being kept in 1894.
Weather forecasters said the heat wave was caused by an extended “heat dome”which allowed hot air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic to stream northward over much of North America.
This current heat wave was yet more evidence of the impact of human-caused climate change. “When it comes to record-breaking heat events, the study has been run for event after event in region after region in year after year. And the answer is almost always the same,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington “The days-long heat wave is a taste of the future as climate change reshapes global weather patterns.”
“Another aspect that we see connected to climate change but that we don’t hear about as much is the fact that there is also a lot more water in the atmosphere now. As we warm the oceans and warm the air, there is more evaporation（蒸发）and that wetter air makes us feel hotter,” added weather forecaster, Jennifer Francis. “A combination of high temperature and moisture（湿度）in the air means dangerous conditions for the young, elderly or others who are not healthy. Please drink plenty of water; stay out of the sun and in air-conditioned rooms.”
1. What was the previous temperature record in Salem?| A．104F. | B．126F. | C．130F. | D．134F. |
| A．The climate change. | B．The northward air streams. |
| C．The extended "heat dome". | D．The moisture in the atmosphere. |
| A．The Dangerous Heat Wave Will Last Long |
| B．A Heat Wave Roasts Much of North America |
| C．Measures Must Be Taken to Protect the Young and Elderly |
| D．The "Heat Dome" Is Expected to Cover the Pacific Northwest |
| A．In a first aid guidebook. | B．In a weather forecast. |
| C．In a news report. | D．In a professor's lecture. |
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【推荐1】Finding fish is going to get harder as climate change continues to heat the world's oceans. A new study finds that warming seas over the past 80 years have reduced the sustainable catch of 124 species of fish and shellfish. Sustainable catch refers to the amount that can be harvested without doing long-term damage to the health of populations of some species.
Overfishing has made that decline worse, researchers say. Overfishing refers to catching so many fish that the size of the population falls. In some parts of the world, such as the heavily fished Sea of Japan, the decrease is as high as 35 percent. That's a loss of more than one in every three fish.
Researchers examined changes in 235 populations of fish and shellfish between 1930 and 2010. Those fish populations spread far apart across 38 ocean regions. Temperature changes vary from one ocean site to another. But on average over that time, Earth's sea-surface temperatures have risen by about half a degree Celsius.
On average, that warming has caused the sustainable catch to drop by 4.1 percent, the study found. About 8 percent of the fish and shellfish populations the team studied saw losses as a result of the ocean warming. However, about 4 percent of some populations increased. That's because certain species have thrived in warmer waters. One example is a kind of black sea fish. It lives along the northeastern U.S. coast. As warming continues, these fish will reproduce faster until they reach their limit.
About 3.2 billion people worldwide rely on seafood as a source of food. That means it's urgent for commercial fishing fleets and regulators to consider how climate change is affecting the health of all of those fish in the sea.
1. What does the new study discover？| A．Overfishing is to blame for fish health. |
| B．Warming seas cause fewer fish and shellfish. |
| C．Seafood matters to people's health worldwide. |
| D．The living regions of fish and shellfish are different. |
| A．Survived narrowly. | B．Disappeared soon. |
| C．Decreased sharply. | D．Developed quickly. |
| A．About 8 percent of them suffered from a great loss. |
| B．About 35 percent of them survived in the Sea of Japan. |
| C．About 3.2 billion species have been saved up to now. |
| D．About 80 species have died out because of warming seas |
| A．Satisfied | B．Not interested |
| C．Worried | D．Terrified |
【推荐2】The immense and forbidding Southern Ocean is famous for howling winds and strange waves that have tested mariners for centuries.
But its true strength lies beneath the waves.
The ocean’s dominant feature, extending up to two miles deep and as much as 1.200 miles wide, is the Antarctic Circumpolar (极地附近的) Current, by far the largest current in the world.
It is the world’s climate engine, and it has kept the world from warming even more by drawing deep water from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, much of which has been in the deep ocean for hundreds of years, and pulling it to the surface. There, it exchanges heat and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere before being pushed again on its endless round trip.
Without this action, which scientists call upwelling, the world would be even hotter than it has become as a result of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. “From no perspective is there any place more important than the Southern Ocean,” said Joellen L. Russell, an oceanographer at the University of Arizona. “There’s nothing like it on Planet Earth.”
For centuries this ocean was largely unknown, and its conditions were so extreme that only a relative handful of sailors went to its waters with lots of icebergs.
What fragmentary scientific knowledge was available came from measurements taken by explorers, naval ships, the occasional research expeditions or whaling ships.
But more recently, a new generation of floating, autonomous probes (探测仪) that can collect temperature, density and other data for years—diving deep underwater, and even exploring beneath the Antarctic sea ice, before rising to the surface to phone home—has enabled scientists to learn much more. They have discovered that global warming is affecting the Antarctic current in complex ways, and these shifts could complicate the ability to fight climate change in the future.
1. Why does the true strength lie beneath the waves in the Southern Ocean?| A．There is the deepest current in the world. |
| B．There is the world’s largest current. |
| C．There is severe cold climate in the South Pole. |
| D．There are the strongest winds and strangest waves. |
| A．By pushing severe cold water to the other oceans. |
| B．By cooling the warmer water from the other oceans. |
| C．By drawing cold water from other oceans and pulling it to the surface. |
| D．By keeping cold water in the other oceans for hundreds of years. |
| A．Advanced. | B．Abstract. | C．Incomplete. | D．Concrete. |
| A．The current there is in normal condition despite global warming. |
| B．The current there is under the complicated influence of global warming. |
| C．The autonomous probes have found solutions to global warming. |
| D．Nothing can be done for global warming due to severe cold climate. |
【推荐3】Air travel can be annoying. But research now suggests global warming could make it much worse. To get off the ground in really hot weather, planes may be forced to carry fewer passengers. That might mean a little more space, which would be good. However, it also would make the passengers pay more.
Average air temperatures around the world are rising because people are polluting the air with an increasing number of greenhouse gases, which, such as carbon dioxide, are a byproduct (副产品) of burning fuels. Those warmer temperatures can influence an airplane’s ability to fly because air molecules (分子) spread out more as the air warms. This produces less lift under a plane’s wings, so a plane must be lighter to take off in hot weather than on cooler days.
It can even prove too dangerous for some planes to attempt a take-off. A record of June heat wave in the American Southwest, for instance, caused flight cancellations in Phoenix, Ariz. One airline’s planes were cleared to operate only up to 47.8 degree Celsius. On June 20, Phoenix reached 48.3°C!
Radley Horton is a climate scientist at Columbia University. Two years ago, he and his graduate student Ethan David Coffel studied the impact of warming at four U.S. airports and found that warming of track could triple(使成三倍) the number of days when planes face weight restrictions. Later, they explored the impact of rising temperatures on live types of commercial planes flying out of 19 of the world’s busiest airports. In the coming decades, as many as one to three out of every 10 flights that take off during the hottest time of day could face weight. That would be equal to taking a dozen people off the plane, the researchers calculated.
1. How would global warming affect air travel according to the first paragraph?| A．It’ll add to the danger of flying. |
| B．It’ll increase passengers’ travel cost. |
| C．It’ll make flying much more comfortable. |
| D．It’ll encourage more people to travel by plane. |
| A．How global warming is happening. |
| B．What decides a plane’s ability to fly. |
| C．Why global warming affects flying. |
| D．Where greenhouse gases are created. |
| A．Reasons for flight cancellation. |
| B．The findings of a weight-related research. |
| C．The tendency of temperature change. |
| D．Effects of hot air on financial growth. |
| A．Air Travel Isn’t Recommended during Hot Weather |
| B．Rising Temperatures May Reduce the Number of Flights |
| C．Weight Restrictions Are More Common in More Airports |
| D．Hotter Air May Lead to Planes Carrying Fewer Passengers |
【推荐1】When 66-year-old Londoner Sylvia Haller was laid off in February, it wasn't her income that took a hit. It was her self-respect. “I had this feeling like ‘I'm too old’,” she says. “Nobody wants to employ me anymore.” When a friend told her about TaskRabbit, an app that allows workers to sell all kinds of services—like fixing furniture or waiting in line for special breakfast. She set up an account on her phone, and lined up customers for many different jobs.
The gig economy(零工经济)has exploded in recent years. In a report, researchers estimate 77 million people within Europe, India, and the US formally identify themselves as freelancers(自由职业者).
For most of those workers, freelancing is a choice: only a small minority said they were unable to find full-time jobs. They got into the gig economy in the hope of getting more control over their careers and diversifying the sources of their income.
Almost one-third of Americans who work in the gig economy are baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964. Among those 55 and older, 32% said they were driven, at least in part, by a desire to be around interesting people. “Not knowing what kind of customer you're going to meet is quite exciting,” says Haller, recalling fixing a bed for a student. “I spend less time working and have more time to be home.”
For boomers who work in physically demanding fields, digital gig work can be a relief. Jerry Nelson, a photojournalist, says he's “too old to charge into forests...” Instead, he writes blog posts for others he finds through an online platform.
For some others, gig work is a way to finally pursue their passions. American Dan Hays, 68, who spent most of his career in the oil and gas industries, in 2015 booked his first voi-ceover(旁白)acting job. “I want to try something different and that suits my fancy,” said Hays.
1. What hit Sylvia Haller hardest with being unemployed?| A．Her income. | B．Her pride. |
| C．Her family. | D．Her knowledge. |
| A．It's an app. | B．It aims at elder people. |
| C．It's a new way of working. | D．It's a new form of consumption. |
| A．To meet fun people. | B．To reach out for something new. |
| C．To gain more recognition. | D．To balance work and family. |
| A．The baby boomers in the US |
| B．The daily work of the elderly |
| C．People change retirement with a new form |
| D．Work helps people connect with their communities |
【推荐2】“Hallucinate” — the Word of 2023
Cambridge Dictionary has named “hallucinate” as the word of the year for 2023 — while giving it an added new meaning relating to AI (artificial intelligence) technology.
The added Cambridge Dictionary definition (定义) reads: “When an AI hallucinates, it produces false information, which can vary (变化) from suggestions that seem perfectly believable to ones that are clearly non-sense.”
Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary’s publishing manager, said: “The fact that AIs can ‘hallucinate’ reminds us that humans still need to bring their critical (批判的) thinking skills to the use of these tools. AIs can draw out specific information we need from huge amounts and piece it together. That’s amazing. But they just stop there. The more original (原创的) you ask them to be, the likelier they are to go wrong.”
Actually, at their best, AIs can only be as dependable as their training information. Humans’ professional knowledge is more important than ever, to create the truthful and up-to-date information that AIs can be trained on.
AIs can hallucinate in a confident and thus more misleading manner. Their influences have been shown in real-world examples. In Google’s advertisement for its chatbot Bard, the AI tool made an error about the James Webb Space Telescope. A US law company used cases made up by AIs in court after using ChatGPT for legal research.
“The widespread use of the word ‘hallucinate’ to refer to mistakes by AIs offers us a quick look at how we’re treating them as our equals,” said Dr Henry, an AI ethicist at Cambridge University. “‘Hallucinate’ is originally a verb suggesting someone experiencing a disconnect from reality,” he continued. “It mirrors an unnoticeable change in perception (认知): the AI, not the user, is the one ‘hallucinating’”. It seems that as time progresses, psychological vocabulary will be further enlarged to describe the strange abilities of the new intelligences we’re creating.
1. What can be learned about the false information AIs produce?| A．It doesn’t make any sense to us. | B．We didn’t know about it until 2023. |
| C．It happens because of AIs’ limitation. | D．We invented a new word to describe it. |
| A．The information they’re offered. | B．The way they’re trained in. |
| C．The human experts they work with. | D．The thinking skills they use. |
| A．To introduce a new topic. | B．To prove an established fact. |
| C．To compare the effects AIs produce. | D．To list AIs’ different applications. |
| A．The proper way to treat AIs. |
| B．People’s understanding of AIs. |
| C．Comments on the new use of “hallucinate”. |
| D．The change in the meaning of “hallucinate”. |
【推荐3】Denmark is the largest producer of oil and gas in the European Union, which does not include Norway and the UK, two countries that are larger producers. In 2016, Denmark produced 145,674 barrels of oil per day. That’s why the Danish government’s decision to end all oil and gas exploration in the North Sea is such a big deal.
Denmark will stop extracting (提炼) fossil fuels from the 55 existing oil and gas platforms in the sea at the end of 2050. The future of these offshore oil and gas rigs (钻塔) was uncertain after Denmark agreed to a very ambitious climate target in 2019, to reduce greenhouse emissions by 70 percent in 2030 and to being completely climate neutral 20 years later.
The Danish government estimated that this new policy will amount to $2.147 billion in lost revenue (财政收入). It is the oil and gas industries in the North Sea that made Denmark one of the richest countries as well as one of the happiest. But, for last 10 years, the country has focused on clean energy including offshore wind farms.
Denmark is not the first country to end oil and gas exploration, that title goes to France, but it is the first major fossil fuel producing one and this decision is being applauded by environmental groups.
“This is what climate leadership looks like,” Mel Evans, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said. “All eyes will be on the UK next year as we host crucial climate talks, so our prime minister should take note.”
While it is unknown if the UK will follow, Denmark’s decision is still a huge victory in the fight against climate change and will go a long way to meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Hopefully more countries will follow.
1. What has Danmark paid more attention to in the recent decade?| A．Gas and oil. | B．Happiness. | C．Agricultural farms. | D．Clean energy. |
| A．He participated in climate talks. | B．He thinks highly of Denmark’s decision. |
| C．The UK is bound to follow Denmark’s example. | D．Climate talks will influence the future of Britain. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Disapproving. | C．Skeptical. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Oil and Gas Exploration Benefits Denmark | B．Denmark’s New Decision Surprises the World |
| C．Denmark Produces Oil and Gas in Europe Most | D．Denmark Will End New Exploration in North Sea |
