Global warming could suffocate the sea

The text is taken from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126945.600-sinking-crop-waste-could-cut-global-warming.html

Fish could vanish from huge stretches of the ocean for tens of thousands of years unless we drastically reduce our carbon emissions. Gary Shaffer of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues used computer models to analyse the long-term impact of global warming on the oceans, looking up to 100,000 years into the future. This is important because less oxygen dissolves in warmer water, affecting the amount of life the oceans can support.

To estimate just how much oxygen will be lost, the team used two existing scenarios of future fossil fuel burning published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: a worst case scenario in which we burn three quarters of the Earth's fossil fuel reserves over the coming century, and a mid-range scenario in which we burn only a quarter of reserves. In both cases it is assumed that burning then stops.

Under the worst-case scenario, average ocean oxygen levels will fall by up to 40%, and there will be a 20-fold expansion in the area of "dead zones", like those already discovered in the eastern Pacific and northern Indian Ocean, where there is too little oxygen for fish to survive. Even in the mid-range scenario, dead zones would expand by a factor of 3 or 4. Cold, deep waters will also be affected if warming stifles the currents that deliver oxygen to greater depths.

Shaffer's projections suggest that the oxygen content in surface layers will dip to its lowest levels during the 22nd century and in deep water a thousand years later. Recovery to pre-industrial levels will be very slow: "Even after 100,000 years, oxygen levels will only have recovered by around 90%," he says.

1. Answer the following questions.

- Why could burying crop waste deep in the ocean be an effective way to rein in global warming? Why is this method likely to be competitive with other methods?

- Why should we drastically reduce our carbon emissions? What do Shaffer's projections suggest?

Listening

Task: listen to the text and prove that tsunami is one of the worst natural disasters. What are the reasons of tsunami?

IELTS Practice Tests 1

James Milton-Huw Bell-Petre Neville

Express Publishing, 2002

pp. 46-47

pp. 62-63

Academic reading

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1- 14, which are based on Reading passage 1 below.

Britain set for heat wave – in 2050!

A As you sit in your home or office and look at the rain running relentlessly down the window pane, you will almost certainly be thinking. ‘This is more like February, when will summer arrive?’ This summer seems to have been colder and wetter than ever. So here is some good news. The Meteorological Office computer has analyzed weather patterns over the last 100 years and suggests that the weather will get both drier and warmer – but in fifty year’s time.

B Regardless of the effects of global warming it seems as though we can expect the average temperature in the UK to increase by 1.5 ° C. In parts of the UK we can also expect rainfall to decrease. Probably this will be most apparent in the south and east of Britain where rainfall is already the lowest in the UK. It looks as though parts of the UK may be prone to drought by the middle of the next century. This has already been noticed in the English wine making industry. John Gore Bullingham, who makes the award winning Carter Castle sparkling wine, has noticed that they did grapes ripen two or three weeks earlier than they did when he started the vineyard in 1955.

C All of this seems hard to believe. At present we are in the middle of a cold, grey and distinctly sodden July. It seems as though summer will never arrive. How does this observation fit with Met Office predictions of a warmer, drier Britain? The Met Office’s chief weather forecaster Claire Miles explains, ‘At present the weather over the whole of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe has become temporarily blocked. Those areas which have good weather, such as Southern Europe and the Balkans, can expect to keep it and develop heat waves. Those areas which have bad weather, such as the UK and Northern France, will keep the rain and unseasonable cold.’

D We seem to have kept it for some time already. In the last two weeks of June and first two weeks of July the UK has had an average daily temperature of 12.9 ° C. Although it is hard to believe, this is only 1.7 ° C lower than normal for the time of year. But what makes it seem so cold is that in the same period there have been only three hours of sunshine a day; less than half the average for the period. This, combined with northerly winds, makes it seem much colder. It may get a little warmer towards the end of the month but not much.

E Blocked weather does not have to be bad for the UK. The glorious summer of 1976 was caused by the same phenomenon. In that case the weather patterns came to a standstill with hot rather than cold weather over the UK. Even now, parts of Europe are suffering their highest temperatures for a generation. In Athens last week the temperature rose to 48.5° C, a temperature record for Europe. The settled and warm weather which would normally come to Britain on prevailing westerly winds is now stuck over the North Atlantic, sandwiches between unusually cold and wet weather in Northern Europe and the East coast of North America.

F ‘Basically,’ says Miss Miles, ‘you’ve got low pressure centered on the UK and the eastern US and two huge high pressure areas centered on the Atlantic and the Balkans. Normally high altitude winds would blow west to east and bring the weather with them. They form waves so in somewhere like the UK we usually get alternate high and low pressure systems passing over us. These bring, successively, warm and sunny, then colder and wetter weather and there is a pretty fixed boundary between the two. But this year the waves become so big they turn into cells with the winds within them going round in circles. The normal west to east winds stop and the weather remains static for some time. It could stay like this for the whole summer.’

Questions 1 – 5

Reading Passage 1 has six paragraphs A – F. Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs A – F from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate number I – viii in boxes 1- 5 on your answer sheet. The first one has been done for you as an example.

There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all.

Paragraph Headings

1) The Process of Blocked Patterns

2) Better Weather in Britain Soon

3) The highs and Lows of Weather

4) Record UK Temperatures

5) The Weather Now and in the Future

6) The Weather Now

7) Met Office Forecasts

8) Weather Blocking in the Past

Example Paragraph A ……….

1 Paragraph B …….. 3 Paragraph D ….. 5 Paragraph F ……

2 Paragraph C ……. 4 Paragraph ……..

Questions 6 – 12

Complete the notes below which summarize the explanation for blocked weather patterns using answers selected from the box below. Write your answers on the answer sheet.

Alternately usually occasionally always never speed up Bigger rotate still block smaller

…………….. 6, very high winds blow west to east. These form waves which bring …. 7 good and bad weather systems with them.

………… 8, these waves become …….. 9 and at the highest point and lowest points of the waves the air begins to ……. 10.

The circling air forms cells which ……….. 11 the usual streams of air across the Atlantic ocean. With no high winds these cells stay ……….. 12 for some time.

Questions 13 – 14

Complete the following paragraph based on information in Reading Passage 1 using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write the answers in boxes 13 – 14 on your answer sheet.

The weather in Britain is expected to change in the next fifty years. The temperatures will rise and in some areas the amount of rain will certainly ……… 13. Indeed it has been forecast that some regions of England will be ……. 14 by 2050.

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