| A．Rainy. | B．Sunny. | C．Windy. |
| A．The weather. | B．The food. | C．The people. |
1. What has the highest temperature been in Argentina?
| A．About 45 degrees Celsius. |
| B．About 42 degrees Celsius. |
| C．About 31 degrees Celsius. |
| A．By turning on an air conditioning for them. |
| B．By asking them to drink much water. |
| C．By taking them to do a water sport. |
| A．A weather expert. | B．A local leader. | C．A weatherman. |
| A．Cloudless. | B．Rainy. | C．Cloudy |
| A．Cloudy. | B．Sunny. | C．Rainy. |
6 . This summer, daytime temperatures topped 100 degrees for a full month in northwest China. Southern Europe experienced waves of 100-plus degree days. Heat waves show a serious reality: human-driven climate change is making extreme heat worse worldwide. But health-threatening heat isn’t the only result of record-breaking weather: air pollution happens when the temperatures rise according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.
The new report, which focuses on 2022, shows the growing risk of air pollution connected to wildfires. Hotter temperatures increase the risk of large the risk of large, hot-burning fires, which can pump enormous plumes of smoke into the air. That smoke causes health problems near the fire but also for people thousands of miles downwind.
Extreme heat, also drives up the likelihood of drought, which in turn makes big dust storms more likely. Great clouds of fine dust blew off major deserts last year, particularly affecting the Arabian Peninsula region. Southern Europe also got hit by a major dust storm after a heat wave baked the deserts of northern Africa in the summer.
“That’s a very bad combination of conditions,” says Julie Nicely, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Maryland, who worked on the report. That mix is particularly dangerous for elderly people, or people with breathing sensitivities. “That is very bad for the lungs and the cardiovascular (心血管),” she says.
Air pollution levels have dropped in the past few decades in response to environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act in the United States. Ozone pollution (臭氧污染), however, remains a problem. The report authors point out that the extra heat in the atmosphere driven by climate change overpowers even the gains made by strict environmental protections. The authors suggested focusing on the importance of slowing or changing human-caused climate change as quickly as possible.
“Climate change and air quality cannot be treated separately. They go hand in hand and must be solved together to break this cycle,” WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in a press release.
1. Why is the extreme weather in northwest China and southern Europe mentioned in Para l?| A．To introduce the topic. |
| B．To show the serious situation. |
| C．To warn people of the bad weather. |
| D．To compare two countries’ weather. |
| A．Air pollution is likely to be solved in the future. |
| B．Climate change and air quality are closely connected. |
| C．It’s no use slowing or changing human-caused climate change. |
| D．People’s efforts to protect the environment make no difference. |
| A．It deals with the air pollution completely. |
| B．It makes a big difference to the air problem. |
| C．It has made the problem of air pollution worse. |
| D．It is partly effective in dealing with air pollution. |
| A．A science magazine. |
| B．A travel brochure. |
| C．A research paper. |
| D．An encyclopedia. |
| A．Rainy. | B．Cloudy. | C．Sunny. |
8 . Last month, a study was published that examined climate change’s direct effects on the Earth’s seasons. Scientists found a connection between climate change and the temperature and duration of the summer season. Summers in the Northern hemisphere(北半球) could last nearly six months by the year 2100 if global warming continues, according to the study. With the seasons off-balance, there will be harmful effects on human health and agriculture.
Yuping Guan, a physical oceanographer at the State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues combined daily climate data from 1952 to 2011 to get a sense of the start and end of each season in the Northern hemisphere. Over the nearly 60-year period, they discovered that, on average, summers grew from 78 to 95 days, while winters shortened from 76 to 73 days. The spring and autumn seasons also shortened. Guan and his team used the findings from the data to create a model to hypothesize (假设) about how the seasons would possibly change in the future. They found that if left untouched, summers in the Northern hemisphere could last nearly six months, while winters could contract to less than two months.
If the Earth’s seasons continue to shift, it will bring negative effects to human health and agriculture. Longer and hotter summers, for example, can cause mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects to potentially expand their scope and land in places where they’re usually not found. “Because seasons influence the life cycles of plants and animals, climate change could disturb species’ ability to adapt,” said Scott Sheridan, a climate scientist. “If seasons continue to change, everything isn’t going to change perfectly as they should. If we take the example of flowers coming out of the ground, those flowers could come out, but bees aren’t there to pollinate them yet or they’re already past their peak.” With negative effects like these, human health and agriculture will face hardship while moving forward.
This study further demonstrates how cruel climate change is to humans, plants and animals, reminding us how much we are all connected with the environment we share.
1. What did scientists find according to the study?| A．Some seasons will disappear in their tracks. |
| B．Global warming will be at its worst in 2100. |
| C．Climate change affects the days of summers. |
| D．Human health remains unharmed by climate change. |
| A．Add. | B．Extend. | C．Keep. | D．Shorten. |
| A．Mosquitoes can survive in more places. |
| B．The environment will change as we wish. |
| C．Human health and agriculture are hardly affected. |
| D．Some species are more able to adapt to the change. |
| A．Is the Earth getting warmer? |
| B．Is climate change bringing hardship? |
| C．Is mankind to blame for longer summers? |
| D．Is summer taking over from all other seasons? |
9 . Our current climatic stable period is called the Long Summer. From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung often abruptly from one state to another-from tropical swamp (沼泽) to frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold. That stability has allowed human beings to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen.
But as human population has exploded over the past few thousand years, the fragile ecological balance that kept the Long Summer going has become threatened. The rise of industrialized agriculture has led to pollution on land and water, while our fossil fuel addiction has moved billions of tons of carbon from the land into the atmosphere, heating the climate ever more.
Now a new article in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature says the safe climatic limits in which humanity has blossomed are more vulnerable than ever and that unless we recognize our planetary boundaries and stay within them，we risk total disaster. But the fact is that it’s tough for policymakers to work out a new climate change agreement unless they know just how much carbon needs to be cut to keep people safe.
The problem is that identifying, those limits is a vague science-and even trickier to translate into policy. Scientists still aren’t certain as to how sensitive the climate will be to warming over the long term. It’s possible that the atmosphere will be able to handle more carbon or that disaster could be triggered at lower levels. But climate diplomats should remember that while they can negotiate with one another, ultimately, they can’t negotiate with the planet. Unless we manage our presence on Earth better, we may soon be in the last days of our Long Summer.
1. What contributed to the prosperity of human beings?| A．Farming and civilization. | B．Long-term stable climate. |
| C．Changes on the earth. | D．The beginning of life. |
| A．The rise of agriculture. | B．The imbalanced industry. |
| C．The heavy use of fossil fuel. | D．The upcoming climatic swing. |
| A．By presenting facts. | B．By analyzing causes. |
| C．By explaining reasons. | D．By making predictions. |
| A．Identifying safe climatic limits. | B．Working with climate diplomats. |
| C．Reducing our impact on the planet. | D．Establishing a climate change agreement. |
10 . On the edge of the Atlantic, there is much more water on islands. Experts say the Uists (尤伊斯特群岛) in the UK are on the front line of climate change and some of those who call this home are already adapting to their changing landscape. Donald MacPhee, an islander told BBC, “We seem to be getting a lot more rain—very unpredictable, but back in my father’s days you could guarantee that you’d have plenty of dry weather in August. But now it’s very unpredictable.” This low-lying watery landscape is weak to changes in our climate—with predictions that the sea level here could rise by as much as half a metre over the next few decades.
And that’s not the only challenge facing these islands which are so exposed to wet and stormy weather. Professor Stewart Angus, a coastal ecologist said, “A lot of the land actually lies below the level of the sea for much of the tidal cycle (潮汐). Secondly, you have rising sea levels. Thirdly, you have rising rainfall in winter. And you have the great difficulty in a very low-lying environment of removing that water.”
The airport here provides a lifeline service to islanders. A million pounds has been spent on the latest work to protect the runway, which ends just metres from the shore. At the islands’ arts centre, a picture of a rising line is shown. Andy Mackinnon, an artist told us, “So, the line represents a symbolic level that the sea will rise to. I hope that it does make people think about what we’re doing.”
And from the children here, out taking care of their local beach, messages in English and Gaelic (盖尔语) of their hopes and fears are being sent to the UN climate summit in Glasgow. “Stop sea levels rising. We could be under the water soon.” These small islands hope for big commitments from world leaders to lessen the worst that climate change might bring.
1. What does Paragraph 1 imply?| A．All islands have been under the water. | B．The weather here now is still predictable. |
| C．Islands are at risk due to climate change. | D．The sea level will rise by 5 metres in decades. |
| A．Dry and hot weather. | B．Irregular tidal cycle. |
| C．Protecting the runway. | D．Getting rid of the water. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Indifferent. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Relieved. |
| A．How the islands are flooded. | B．What help UN can provide for islanders. |
| C．What life children here live. | D．What effect climate change may bring. |
