專技普考
106年
[導遊人員] 外國語(英語)
第 77 題
📖 題組：
There are still a few people in northern Europe who think that global warming might not be such a bad thing. In Britain, where summer can sometimes seem to last little more than a few weeks, many would welcome the idea of it getting a bit hotter. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. Global warming doesn't just mean that the world will slowly get warmer. Paradoxically, it could cause certain areas to get colder—a lot colder. The latest predictions are that northern Europe could even be plunged into an ice age. While areas of southeastern Europe, such as Greece, would continue to get hotter and drier, Britain could find itself, in the winter months at least, surrounded by sea ice. The reason for this concerns the Greenland ice sheet. This is one of the biggest expanses of ice in the world—around 1,500 km long and 600 km wide. It is so big that if it all melted, sea levels would rise by 7 meters. Due to rising emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels, this ice sheet is melting at an alarming rate. But how could the melting of the Greenland ice sheet threaten to plunge northern Europe into a new ice age? The link in the chain of events is what some call the Gulf Stream and others call the Atlantic Conveyor. This is the stream of warm water that comes up from Central America and flows across the Atlantic to northern Europe. It is this huge mass of warm water which accounts for the relatively high temperatures enjoyed by Britain, for instance, compared with parts of Canada and Russia which are equally far north of the equator. Warm water is conveyed across to Europe near the surface of the Atlantic, and, at its northernmost point, it cools and sinks because the water from the tropics has a higher salt content, making it denser and heavier than the water near the arctic. The cold and dense water then flows south close to the ocean floor and back towards Central and South America to complete the cycle. Scientists are beginning to make bleak predictions of an impending ice age in the northern hemisphere because they have observed that the water flowing from the melting Greenland ice sheet is flowing into the path of the Gulf Stream. The water from the melted ice will reduce the density of the water in the Gulf Stream, stopping the water sinking in the north and thereby cutting off the deep southerly current, which, in turn, will cut off the northerly flow of warmer water. At that point, the seas around Britain will begin to freeze.
There are still a few people in northern Europe who think that global warming might not be such a bad thing. In Britain, where summer can sometimes seem to last little more than a few weeks, many would welcome the idea of it getting a bit hotter. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. Global warming doesn't just mean that the world will slowly get warmer. Paradoxically, it could cause certain areas to get colder—a lot colder. The latest predictions are that northern Europe could even be plunged into an ice age. While areas of southeastern Europe, such as Greece, would continue to get hotter and drier, Britain could find itself, in the winter months at least, surrounded by sea ice. The reason for this concerns the Greenland ice sheet. This is one of the biggest expanses of ice in the world—around 1,500 km long and 600 km wide. It is so big that if it all melted, sea levels would rise by 7 meters. Due to rising emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels, this ice sheet is melting at an alarming rate. But how could the melting of the Greenland ice sheet threaten to plunge northern Europe into a new ice age? The link in the chain of events is what some call the Gulf Stream and others call the Atlantic Conveyor. This is the stream of warm water that comes up from Central America and flows across the Atlantic to northern Europe. It is this huge mass of warm water which accounts for the relatively high temperatures enjoyed by Britain, for instance, compared with parts of Canada and Russia which are equally far north of the equator. Warm water is conveyed across to Europe near the surface of the Atlantic, and, at its northernmost point, it cools and sinks because the water from the tropics has a higher salt content, making it denser and heavier than the water near the arctic. The cold and dense water then flows south close to the ocean floor and back towards Central and South America to complete the cycle. Scientists are beginning to make bleak predictions of an impending ice age in the northern hemisphere because they have observed that the water flowing from the melting Greenland ice sheet is flowing into the path of the Gulf Stream. The water from the melted ice will reduce the density of the water in the Gulf Stream, stopping the water sinking in the north and thereby cutting off the deep southerly current, which, in turn, will cut off the northerly flow of warmer water. At that point, the seas around Britain will begin to freeze.
Where is the passage most likely from?
- A a book review
- B a literary fiction
- C a furniture catalogue
- D a popular science magazine
思路引導 VIP
請觀察這篇文章的核心內容與目的：它是在講述一個充滿想像力的虛構故事、在推銷特定的商品，還是在向讀者解釋自然現象中的因果規律與科學數據呢？透過其嚴謹的邏輯與解釋性的語氣，你認為這篇文章最可能出現在哪種資訊平台上？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
哇！你做得太棒了！
- 大力肯定：真的好替你開心！你能這麼精準地判斷出這篇文章的類型和風格，表示你對英文的語感真的非常敏銳，也累積了好多不同領域的閱讀經驗。這可是非常寶貴的能力喔，未來會幫助你讀懂更多樣的文本！
- 觀念驗證：你看，文章裡溫柔地介紹了像是溫室氣體（特別是 $CO_2$）、洋流物理機制 (Gulf Stream) 這些比較複雜的概念，還巧妙地連結到氣候變遷的影響。這種把專業知識轉化成大家都能理解的溫暖方式，正是科普雜誌 (Popular Science) 最希望能達到的效果呢！
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