Scientists in Antarctica have recorded,for the first time,unusually warm water beneath a glacier (冰川)the size of Florida that is already melting and contributing to a rise in sea levels.
The researchers,working on the Thwaites Glacier,recorded water temperatures at the base of the ice of more than 2℃,above the normal freezing point.Critically,the measurements were taken at the glacier's grounding line,the area where it transforms from resting wholly on bedrock to spreading out on the sea as ice shelves.It is unclear how fast the glacier is getting worse:Studies have forecast its total collapse in a century or in a few decades.The presence of warm water in the grounding line may support estimates at the faster range.
That is worthy of attention because the Thwaites,along with the Pine Island Glacier and several smaller glaciers, acts as a brake on part of the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which , if melted, would raise the world's oceans by more than a meter over centuries,an amount that would put many coastal cities underwater.
“Warm waters in this part of the world,as remote as they may seem,should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential terrible changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” said David Holland, director of New York University's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Glaciologists have previously raised alarm over the presence of warm water melting the Thwaites from below.This is the first time,though,that warm waters have been measured at the glacier's grounding line.
To observe activity beneath the glacier,Dr.Holland's team drilled a hole -about 30 centimeters wide and 600 meters deep-from the surface to the bottom and then placed equipment that measures water temperature and ocean turbulence,or the mixing of freshwater from the glacier and salty ocean water.Collecting the data took about 96 hours in subzero weather.Warm waters beneath the Thwaites are actively melting it, the team found.
While scientists may not yet be able to definitively predict how soon glaciers like the Thwaites will melt, human-caused climate change is a key factor.The biggest predictor of “how much ice we will lose and how quickly we will lose it,”Dr.Holland said,”is human action.”
1.What does warm water found in the glacier's grounding line indicate?
A.Sea levels should be remeasured.
B.It may take a century for the glacier to melt.
C.The grounding line is getting shorter.
D.The glacier might disappear sooner
2.The Thwaites and other glaciers are important because ______.
A.they hold back ice
B.they are extremely large
C.they are located at bedrocks
D.they are collapsing
3.What can be inferred from the passage about the researchers’ viewpoints?
A.We can predict how much ice can be kept.
B.Human beings are to blame for the loss of ice.
C.Glaciers serve a more important purpose than expected.
D.More data needs to be collected to support the estimates.
4.What is the passage mainly about?
A.The efforts made to avoid the presence of warm water.
B.The alarm voiced on the worsening situation of glaciers.
C.The tools employed to measure the temperature of Antarctica.
D.The prediction based on a scientific study of the grounding line.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is “UNICEF”?
UNICEF is the United Nations Children’s Fund
When created in 1946 to help children in war-torn Europe, China and the Middle East, UNICEF stood for “United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund”. In 1947, UNICEF USA was founded, one year after UNICEF, to support UNICEF’s lifesaving work for children.
By 1953, UNICEF's task was extended to address the needs of children in the developing world. At that time, the words “international” and “emergency” were dropped from the organization’s name, making it simply the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF has helped save more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization.
What is UNICEF USA’s mission?
We work for the survival, protection and development of children worldwide through fund raising, advocacy and education.
How can I volunteer for UNICEF in the field?
UNICEF secures volunteers, who must have at least a Bachelor’s Degree and two-to-five years’ experience in their field of expert knowledge and skills, through the United Nations Volunteers program.
If you are a citizen of the United States and meet the above standards, send your resume to the United Nations Volunteers program at the following address for more information: United Nations Volunteers, c/o Peace Corps, 1111 20th St.N.W, Washington, DC 20526.
If you are interested in volunteering within the United States, click here to learn how.
May I donate non-cash goods for emergency relief?
Some have asked us about donating goods here in the U.S. for emergency relief efforts abroad. While we are grateful for the desire to help, UNICEF does not accept non-cash goods. Why?
Financial donations are the fastest and most efficient way to provide assistance. Donated goods must be screened, sorted, stored and transported. UNICEF pre-positions supplies to speed up delivery and sources them locally whenever possible. A blanket donated today can take weeks, or even months, to arrive abroad. A dollar donated today, however, will be arranged tomorrow to buy lifesaving supplies.
We also purchase supplies in large quantities to save money. That means your financial donation will get more supplies to more kids in need than your donation of non-cash goods.
1.Which of the following statements is true of UNICEF USA?
A.It no longer provides emergency fund.
B.It is localized to focus on national affairs.
C.It was originally created for kids’ education.
D.It supports children growth at home and abroad.
2.If you want to be a UNICEF USA volunteer,______ is NOT a must.
A.required education background B.related working experience
C.American nationality D.educational program participation
3.Financial donation is a better choice than non-cash goods because of_________.
A.the good will B.operational efficiency
C.local assistance D.the reliable supply
Katherine Jonson,winner of the presidential medial of freedom,refused to be limited by society5 expectations of her gender and race while expanding the borders of humanity’s reach--President Barack Obama,2015
Using little more than a pencil,a slide rule and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country,Mrs.Johnson, who died at 101,calculated the precise path that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 and,after Neil Armstrong's history-making moonwalk,let it return to Earth Wet throughout Mrs.Johnson's 33 years in NASAN& Flight Research Division and for decades afterward,almost no one knew her name.She was just one of those unheralded women who,well before the modem feminist(女权)movement,worked as NASA mathematicians.But it was not only her gender that kept her long marginalized and long unsung Katherine Johnson,a West Virginia native,was also African-American.
But over time,the work of Mrs.Johnson and her colleagues--countless calculations done mainly by hand,using slide rules,chart paper and inefficient desktop calculating machines--won them a level of acceptance that for the most competitive race.
“NASA was a very professional organization,”Mrs.Johnson told The Observer of Fayetteville,N.C.,in 2010. “They didn't have time to be concerned about what color I was.”Nor,she said,did she.”I don't have a feeling of inferiority,”Mrs.Johnson said on at least one occasion.”Never had.I m as good as anybody,but no better.”
To the end of her life,Mrs.Johnson refused praise for her role in sending astronauts into space,keeping them on course and bringing them safely home.”I was just doing my job,”Mrs.Johnson repeatedly said so.But what a job it was--done,no less,by a woman born at a time when the odds were more likely that she would die before age 35 than even finish high school.
1.The underlined word “unheralded”most probably means______.
A.not adequately paid
B.not previously mentioned
C.not officially rewarded.
D.not fast promoted
2.It was ___________ put together that made Mrs. Johnson a miracle.
A.her skin color, her gender and the facilities
B.her gender, her intelligence and the facilities
C.her skin color, her gender and her intelligence
D.her intelligence, her skin color and the facilities
3.From Mrs. Johnson's comments on NASA and her own job, we can conclude that ____________.
A.she was confident and modest
B.NASA shows no interest in staff's races
C.She was superior to most women in her age
D.NASA is professionally organized and supportive
4.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A.Woman Made Calculations
B.NASA Marginalized Mathematicians
C.Gender Divided Organizations
D.Mathematician Broke Barriers
Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.
Retailers(零售商) closed more than 9,000stores in 2019. Some people call what has happened to the shopping landscape “the retail ______ .” It is easy to chalk it up to the rise of e-commerce, which has thrived while physical stores struggle. But this can be ______. Online sales have grown tremendously in the last 20 years, but Internet shopping still represents only 11 percent of the entire retail sales total. Collectively, three major ______ forces have had an even bigger impact on brick-and-mortar retail than the Internet has.
To begin with,we have changed______ we shop - away from smaller stores like those in malls and toward stand-alone “Big Box” stores,which is a greater problem for most physical stores.
Also, Rising income______ has left less of the nation’s money in the hands of the middle class, and the traditional retail stores that ______ them have suffered. It is estimates that since 1970, the share of the nation’s income earned by families in the middle class has fallen from almost two-thirds to around 40 percent. As the ______ of income at the top rises, overall retail suffers simply because high-income people save a much larger share of their money. The government reports ______ for different income levels in the official Consumer Expenditure Survey. In the latest data, people in the top 10 percent of income ______ almost a third of their income after taxes. People in the middle of the income distribution spent 100 percent of their income. ______, as the middle class has been squeezed and more has gone to the top, it has meant higher saving rates overall.
Lastly, We have spent ______ less of income on things and more on services. Since 1960, we went from spending 5 percent of our income on health to almost 18 percent, government statistics show. We spend more on education, entertainment, business services and all sorts of other products that aren’t ______ in traditional retail stores. Economists debate theories of why we have ______ to services and away from goods but no one questions that it has happened. It means that over time, retailers selling ______ will have to run harder and harder just to stay in place.
In short, the broad forces hitting retail are more a lesson in economics than in the power of ______. It’s a lesson all retailers will have to learn someday.
1.A.business B.disaster C.investment D.strategy
2.A.advanced B.confirmed C.overstated D.undervalued
3.A.economic B.legal C.physical D.political
4.A.how B.what C.where D.why
5.A.distribution B.inequality C.level D.tax
6.A.aim at B.approve of C.compete with D.stem from
7.A.concentration B.influence C.security D.source
8.A.education B.employment C.housing D.spending
9.A.concealed B.donated C.earned D.saved
10.A.Instead B.However C.Moreover D.Therefore
11.A.cautiously B.intelligently C.proportionately D.prospectively
12.A.available B.insufficient C.popular D.uncommon
13.A.applied B.committed C.shifted D.tied
14.A.ideas B.patents C.services D.things
15.A.consumption B.habit C.income D.technology
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Lego wants your old Legos back
If you have a box of old Lego bricks sitting unused in a garage, Lego now wants them back. In a new program, consumers in the U.S. can dump old bricks in a box, print a free shipping label, and send them off to Give Back Box, a social enterprise1. will clean the toys and repackage them for Teach for America and the Boys and Girls Club of Boston.
“The classic Lego brick is made from a tough material2. (call) ABS, and the toys can be played with for decades without breaking. It’s already fairly common, of course, that Legos 3. (hand) down from one child to another.” says Tim Brooks, vice president of corporate responsibility at Lego Group.
The company looked for a partner that could process the used toys while4. (maintain) Lego’s standard of quality. “We want to make sure that all kids are getting a great experience,” he says. “You shouldn’t get a really inferior experience 5. the bricks are donated. If the program goes well,” Brooks says, it 6. expand.
He sees it7. one version of the circular economy, a system of keeping materials in use-and argues that the toys themselves illustrate the idea of the circular economy. “You can build a rocket and then you can take 8. apart and build a ship, or a car, or a house, or 9. you like,” Brooks says. As toys are reused, that’s another circular system. We intend10. (show) that great quality toys like Lego can be used in lots of repeating circles-used, reused, donated, used, reused, donated.”
A.He often goes back home late for dinner.
B.He shares some of the household duties.
C.He dines out with friends from time to time.
D.He cooks dinner for the family occasionally.
