Climate science has been rapidly advancing in recent years, but the foundations were laid hundreds of years ago.
In the 1820s, French scientist Joseph Fourier theorized that Earth must have some way of keeping heat and that the atmosphere may play some role. In 1850, American scientist Eunice Newton Foote put thermometers(温度计)in glass bottles and experimented with placing them in sunlight. Inside the bottles, Foote compared dry air, wet air, N2, O2 and CO, and found that the bottle containing humid air warmed up more and stayed hotter longer than the bottle containing dry air,and that it was followed by the bottle containing CO2. In 1859, Irish scientist John Tyndall began measuring how much heat different gases in the atmosphere absorb. And in 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius concluded that more CO2 in the atmosphere would cause the planet to heat up: These findings planted some of the earliest seeds of climate science.
The first critical breakthrough happened in 1967 when Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald connected energy absorbed by the atmosphere to the air movement vertically over Earth.They built a model which first included all the main physical processes related to climate changes. The predictions and the explanations based on their model still hold true in the real world almost half a century later.
The model was improved in the 1980s by Klaus Hasselmann who connected short-term weather patterns with long-term climate changes. Hasselmann found that even random weather data could yield insight into broader patterns.
“ The greatest uncertainty in the model remains what human beings will do. Figuring it out is 1,000 times harder than understanding the physics behind climate changes,” Manabe said.“ There are many things we can do to prevent climate change. The whole question is whether people will realize that something which will happen in20 or 30 years is something you have to respond to now.”
So, it’s up to us to solve the problem that these pioneers helped the world understand.
1. What does the word “humid” underlined in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Cool. | B．Cold. | C．Dry. | D．Wet. |
| A．He found that CO2 causes global warming. |
| B．He invented a unique measuring instrument. |
| C．He improved Manabe and Wetherald’s model. |
| D．He built a reliable model on climate change. |
| A．The biggest problem with the climate model. |
| B．The necessity for human beings to take action now. |
| C．The challenge of understanding climate change. |
| D．Measures to be taken to prevent climate change. |
| A．Negative Effects of the Global Warming |
| B．Historic Breakthroughs in Climate Science |
| C．Main Causes Leading to Climate Change |
| D．Difficulties of Preventing Climate Change |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Robotics/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Competitions for High School Students
Robotics and AI competitions are a great way for high schoolers to dive into modern technologies. Here are four of them.
MATE ROV Competition
Location: Houston, Texas
Awards: VR headsets
Competition Date: March to June
MATE ROV Competition challenges students to design and build remotely operated vehicles, and its purpose is to see who can design a vehicle that will help monitor ocean health, provide clean energy, or just help keep our oceans healthy for the future.
RoboRave
Location: Lorrach, Germany
Awards: Small cash prizes
Competition Date: November
RoboRave is a robotics competition that welcomes participants to compete in various challenges like firefighting. The competition’s unique aspect lies in its international reach, bringing together enthusiasts from around the world to celebrate robotics education and hands-on learning.
Agorize AI Challenge
Location: Virtual for initial phases, then in Paris, France for the final award ceremony
Awards: A trip to the destination of your choice, iPad, Apple TV
Competition Date: September
In this project, you can work in teams of 2-5 people to present an idea for how we can use AI-technologies to impact a specific field, like marketing, healthcare, etc. You’ll send in your initial application in a 3-5 slides presentation, and if your team makes it pass this phase, you’ll have the opportunity to include more information about your product features.
OpenCV AI Competition
Location: Online
Awards: Certificates, cash, free courses
Competition Date: December
In your project, you can either work individually or in teams of three using computer vision technologies. OpenCV AI Competition suggests project ideas related to robotics, agriculture or education, but you’re not limited to these areas.
1. Which of the following mainly welcomes the entries for oceanic conditions?| A．RoboRave. | B．MATE ROV Competition. |
| C．Agorize AI Challenge. | D．OpenCV AI Competition. |
| A．It is held every month. | B．It offers online training. |
| C．It is a global competition. | D．It promises a national tour. |
| A．They allow teamwork. | B．They provide free courses. |
| C．They fund their winners. | D．They need presentations at first. |
【推荐2】Do you still remember Jurassic Park, an amazing movie where science brings dinosaurs back from extinction? Now some very smart scientists are working on a way to revive, not dinosaurs, but other extinct species like the woolly mammoth （长毛象）using the gene editing technology known as CRISPR.
As an evolutionary biologist, obviously, it would be amazing to bring back extinct creatures. But even if we can bring them back, we are not going to be able to control how they evolve in the future. No man is an island and neither is any other creature. We need an ecosystem in order to survive. So we can think a lot about the examples of reintroducing species into the environment, like the gray wolves into Yellowstone. Ecology is very complicated and it certainly wasn't important when we first introduce rabbits into Australia, which was a total disaster eventually.
All animals like birds and mammals have to learn from their parents. If we bring them back to life, who are going to be around to teach them? We have examples where in California we've had the reproduction of the condors （秃鹰）.What scientists tried to do is to feed the babies using a mother condor puppet. When these poor creatures were released into the wild, they had an unnatural liking for humans. They didn't behave the way they should have, for condors.
According to Performing Animal Welfare Society, a healthy elephant costs about $70,000 per year to care for and an elderly elephant costs a good deal more. Of course, we are not talking about one. We're talking about many creatures. I don't think these creatures will have a future.
1. Why does the author mention the film in the first paragraph?| A．To recall an amazing movie. |
| B．To promote some extinct species. |
| C．To introduce the topic to be discussed. |
| D．To get to know some intelligent scientists. |
| A．Humans need a balanced ecosystem to survive. |
| B．To bring back extinct creatures was an unwise idea. |
| C．Helping endangered species proves to be beneficial for humans. |
| D．There were all sorts of positive effects about reintroducing species. |
| A．Condor. | B．Gray wolf. | C．Rabbit. | D．Elephant. |
| A．Is Jurassic Park an Amazing Movie? |
| B．What do Creatures Need to Survive? |
| C．Should We Bring Extinct Animals Back to Life? |
| D．How does an Evolutionary Biologist Protect Animals? |
【推荐3】We have heard some interesting ways that 5G wireless technology might change our lives in the future.
5G short for the 5th generation mobile communication technology, promises Internet speeds between 50 to 100 times faster than current 4G systems. While 5G is set to be used in some limited areas of America this year, much of the world is not expected to receive widely available service until 2023.
One project in Britain, however, is already testing this super fast technology on an unlikely group of Internet users—cows. The project was developed by American technology company Cisco Systems. It also receives money from the British government. Cisco says the program seeks to explore the future of 5G connectivity in rural areas around the world.
Testing areas were set up at farms in three rural areas of England. The cows are equipped with 5G-connected devices (装置) that link up to a robotic milking system, which uses sensors (传感器) and machine learning to fully automate the process. System designers say technology takes over after a cow feels ready to be milked and walks toward an automatic gate. The device is designed to recognize each individual cow. It then positions equipment to the right body position for milking. During the process, machines release food for the cow as a reward.
Other 5G technology tools include automated brushes that turn on when the cow rubs up against them. Sensors also control the amount of light to the cows’ living areas depending on the weather. And an automatic feeding system makes sure the animals always get enough to eat.
Duncan Forbes, head of the project, told Reuters that the project shows the farm’s cow operations can be greatly improved with 5G technology and that the experiment provides strong evidence that 5G technology can be widely used in the future, not just on farms in Britain, but in rural communities across the world.
1. What is the purpose of Cisco Systems’ program?| A．To win financial support from British government. |
| B．To test the effects of 5G technology on animals. |
| C．To promote its technological development in Britain. |
| D．To expand the future use of 5G in rural communities. |
| A．The company. | B．The project. | C．The technology. | D．The group. |
| A．It is no worse than 4G in terms of speed. | B．It enables cows to control their own milking. |
| C．It is already widely available in the world. | D．It makes cows eat less and milk more than before. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Lifestyle. | C．Technology. | D．Education. |
【推荐1】Do you always agree to do things that you are unwilling to do? Are you the type of person who always says "yes"? I've come to learn that it is very important to learn to say NO! It's okay. People are still going to like you. They may even respect you more because they know you are honest.
I'm not saying to say "no" to someone who really needs your help. I'm talking about refusing that meeting that you really do not want to attend or that birthday party that you don't want to be a guest at.
Think for a moment how you feel when you say YES to something that you really don't want to do. If you're like I once was，you can't sleep at night and you think about it too much. It weighs on your mind. You try to find ways out. Whatever you're saying to yourself，if you really wanted to go，you wouldn't have all of these thoughts.
So，why not just say NO from the beginning? Maybe you feel like if you don't show up at the meeting (by the way，it is not the one you must attend) your boss isn't going to like you or your co-workers won't respect you. Maybe you feel as if your mom，dad or sisters won't love you as much if you don't do everything for them that they ask every occasion.
If these people are your true friends，family members，or a good boss，they will like or love you the same no matter what. People treat you the way you teach them to, and if you're someone who always says "yes", then that's what they're expecting.
You need to do what is right for you. Of course we do have real obligations in life to fulfill，but we do not have to do everything others want us to do.
1. Which of the following statements would the writer agree with?| A．We should try to do what our friends ask us to do. |
| B．We should help others in need. |
| C．Always saying "no" means you are brave. |
| D．Always saying "yes" means you are dishonest. |
| A．Saying "yes". |
| B．A friend's birthday party. |
| C．Something you're unwilling to do. |
| D．Something you think difficult to do. |
| A．upset them |
| B．disappoint them |
| C．have a loose relationship with them |
| D．have the same relationship with them as before |
| A．Learn to Make a Right Choice |
| B．To Be Yourself |
| C．Learn to Say No |
| D．Do What You Want to Do |
【推荐2】A scientific approach to reducing poverty’s many harmful effects via field experiments in schools and other real-world settings has won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both of MIT, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University will receive equal shares of the prize of 9 million Swedish kronor. Duflo is only the second woman ever to be awarded the economics Nobel. “Poverty has deep roots, and we use an experimental approach to examine particular aspects of this problem and determine what interventions (干预) work.” Duflo said.
More than 700 million people globally live in extreme poverty. Half of the world’s children leave school without basic language or math skills. Roughly 5 million children under age 5 annually die from diseases that could have been prevented with inexpensive treatments.
The three winners design and test interventions aimed at specific ways to alleviate poverty’s effects on education, health care and other areas. Such studies are especially important because policies intended to fight poverty can often cause opposite results.
In the mid-1990s, Kremer led a team that tested a range of interventions aimed at improving learning among students attending schools in western Kenya. Banerjee and Duflo, often with Kremer, then performed similar studies in other countries. One important line of research developed “Teaching at the Right Level” programs, which enable teachers in low-income, developing nations to target instruction to students’ learning levels. Teachers in these programs learn ways to keep students from falling behind rather than forcing them through a one-size-fits-all curriculum for each grade.
A 2011 study led by Duflo, for instance, found that grade 1 test scores in a Kenyan school increased when teachers divided students into smaller classes based on their initial learning levels.
A string of studies in the. same vein led by the 2019 winners took randomized controlled trials and field experiments from ignored status to standard practice in developing nations.
These studies showed that the virtually unanswerable question “How can we fight global poverty?” could be broken into smaller, testable questions such as “Why do children not attend school?” and “Why do small-scale farmers not use technologies such as modern seeds and fertilizer (肥料) that are known to be profitable?”
1. What does the underlined word “alleviate” in Paragraph 4 most probably mean?| A．relieve |
| B．remove |
| C．control |
| D．transform |
| A．is more suitable for high-level students |
| B．is an intervention initially created by Duflo |
| C．will surely get rid of the deep roots of poverty |
| D．takes into consideration students learning levels |
| A．The authorities concerned should make policies based on scientific findings. |
| B．Field experimenting is the most scientific way to find whether interventions work. |
| C．Education should be paid more attention to due to its important part in fighting poverty. |
| D．It may be helpful to narrow down the scale of a problem by focusing on specific aspects. |
【推荐3】For late 19th-century North Americans and Europeans, a display of tableware (餐具)could reveal much about someone’s social position, as the wealthy took great care to get different kinds of forks for everything. Before the 18th century, people of all classes usually ate with a knife and a spoon.
The fork’s path to the table was hard-won and slow. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, forks were used for slicing food into pieces or lifting meat from a pot or fire.
Following a reduction in size, the fork appeared to have entered dining areas in the courts of the Middle East and Byzantine Empire by the eighth and ninth centuries, and became common among wealthy families there by the tenth century. Early in the 11th century, it appeared in various pieces of European art. In the late 11th century, St.Peter Damian from Ostia wrote about a Byzantine princess who used forks and regarded her dying of a disease as punishment for such “luxury”.
The fork’s slow conquest of Europe was carried out from Italy. Motivated by the same concerns for hygiene(卫生)，forks were bought by wealthy Britons，inspired by Queen Victoria, who regarded fork use as a sign of good manners.
The fork’s introduction to North America dates back to 1633, when John Winthrop, a founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was gifted a set of forks. The Industrial Revolution strengthened the fork’s presence on dining room tables as production of flatware became less expensive. Writing in 1896 inSocial Eriquere，Maud C. Cooke declared the fork had finally conquered the knife in America and “any attempt to give the knife importance at table is looked upon as an offense(冒犯)against good taste.”
1. What can we learn about forks from paragraph1?| A．They were used improperly in the 18th century. |
| B．They had many different types in the 19th century. |
| C．They were popular in Europe before the 18th century. |
| D．They led to North American’s rise in social position. |
| A．To eat food. | B．To decorate tables. |
| C．To cut food. | D．To create works of art. |
| A．St.Peter Damian. | B．Thomas Coryate. |
| C．Queen Victoria | D．Maud C.Cooke. |
| A．The appearance of flatware |
| B．The start of the Industrial Revolution. |
| C．John Winthrop receiving forks as presents. |
| D．Maud C.Cooke writing Social Etiquette. |
