泽熙美文Reading Comprehension
The Greenhouse Effect
温室效应
The air we breathe keeps us alive in more ways than one. Without our atmosphere, average global temperature would be about minus 18℃(minus 0.4℉) instead of the present 15℃(59℉). All the incoming sunlight, with energy equivalent to about three 100-watt light bulbs per square yard, would strike Earth’s surface, causing it to emit infrared waves like a giant radiator. That heat would simply travel unimpeded back out into the void.
Because of the atmosphere, however, only a fraction of that heat makes it directly back into space. The rest is trapped in the lower air layers, which contain a number of gases-water vapor, CO2, methane, and others that absorb the outgoing infrared radiation. As those gases heat up, some of their warmth radiates back down to the surface. The entire process is called the greenhouse effect, and most of it is caused by the predominant greenhouse gas, water vapor.
With increased heating, more water evaporates from oceans, lakes, and soils. Because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, this creates a powerful feedback loop: The hotter it gets, the higher the water vapor content of the air, and thus the greater the greenhouse warming.
Human beings have little direct control over the volume of water in the atmosphere. But we produce other greenhouse gases that intensify the effect. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that rising CO2 emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, account for about 60 percent of the warming observed since 1850. Carbon dioxide concentration has been increasing about 0.3 percent a year, and it is now about 30 percent higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. If current rates continue, it will rise to at least twice pre-industrial levels by about 2060 and by the end of the century could be four times as high. That is particularly worrisome because CO2 lifetime is more than a hundred years in the atmosphere, compared with eight days for water vapor.
Methane, the principal ingredient of natural gas, has caused an estimated 15 percent of the warming in modern times. Generated by bacteria in rice fields, decomposing garbage, cattle ranching, and fossil fuel production, methane persists in the atmosphere for nearly a decade and is now about 2.5 times as prevalent as it was in the 16th century. Other major greenhouse gases include nitrous oxide produced by both agriculture and industry and various solvents and refrigerants like chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are now banned by international treaty because of their damaging effect on Earth’s protective ozone layer.
The relentless accumulation of greenhouse gases has led the IPCC to project that in the next hundred years global average temperatures will rise by 1 to 3.5 degrees C. That may not seem like much. Yet the “little ice age,” an anomalous cold snap that peaked from 1570 to 1730 and forced European farmers to abandon their fields, was caused by a change of only half a degree C.
But how credible are current projection? The computer models used to project greenhouse effects far into the future are still being improved to accommodate a rapidly growing fund of knowledge. And it is remarkably difficult to detect a definitive “signature” of human activity in the world’s widely fluctuating climate record.
1. The main part of the heat caused by sunlight is absorbed by ______.
A.the lower air layers
B.a number of gases in the lower air layers
C.the earth’s surface
D.water vapor
正确答案：B
2. Paragraphs 4 and 5 deal with other greenhouse gases many make ______.
A.by burning fossil fuels
B.by bacteria in rice fields
C.by CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide
D.both A and B
正确答案：D
3. The word “relentless” in the first sentence of Paragraph 6 “The relentless accumulation of greenhouse gases has led the IPCC to project that” means ______.
A.without permission
B.without pity
C.less severe
D.less harmful
正确答案：B
4. Which of the statements about volume of water in atmosphere is true?
A.Man has done a lot with it.
B.Man has little direct control over it.
C.Man has taken measures for it.
D.Man has nothing to do with it.
正确答案：B
5. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A.The computer models used to project greenhouse effects are not satisfactory.
B.The climate of the world has been changing.
C.Our present projection about Greenhouse Effect is somewhat undependable.
D.Human knowledge has been increasing very quickly.
正确答案：C
As with any work of art, the merit of Chapman Kelley’s “Wildflower Works I” was in the eye of the beholder.
Kelley, who normally works with paint and canvas, considered the twin oval gardens planted in 1984 at Daley Bicentennial Park his most important piece.
The Chicago Park District considered it a patch of raggedy vegetation on public property that could be dug up and replanted at will like the flower boxes along Michigan Avenue. And that’s what happened in June 2004, when the district decided to create a more orderly vista for pedestrians crossing from Millennium Park via the new Frank Gehry footbridge.
If you’re looking for evidence that the rubes who run the Park District don’t know art when they see it, all you have to do is visit what’s left of Kelley’s masterpiece. The exuberant 1.5-acre tangle of leggy wildflowers is now confined to a tidy rectangle, restrained on all sides by a knee-high hedge and surrounded by a closely cropped lawn. White hydrangeas and pink shrub roses complete the look. We don’t know who’s responsible for the redesign, but we’ll bet the carpet in his home doesn’t go with the furniture.
Still, you’d think the Park District was within its rights to plow under the prairie. Wrong. Kelley just won at lawsuit in which he argued that the garden was public are and therefore protected by the federal Visual Artists Rights Act. Under that law, the district should have given him 90 days’ notice that it intended to mess with his artwork instead of rushing headlong into the demolition, a la Meigs Field. That way Kelley could have mounted a legal challenge, or at least removed the plants.
Park District officials said they never considered the garden a work of art, even though it was installed by an established artist and not, say, Joe’s Sod and Landscaping. We can understand their confusion. Just recently, we figured out that the caged greenery directly south of Pritzker Pavilion is supposed to be an architectural statement and not a Christmas tree lot.
All that’s left is for the district to compensate Kelley for his loss. Whatever price the parties settle on, let’s hope the agreement also provides for the removal of the rest of “Wildflower Works I.”
If it was’t an eyesore before—and plenty of people thought it was…it sure is now.
6. It is implied in the first Paragraph that the public ______.
A.paid little attention to “Wildflower Works I”
B.appreciated the value of “Wildflower Works I”
C.tolerated the ugliness of “Wildflower Works I”
D.had their own views on “Wildflower Works I”
正确答案：B
[解析] 根据文中第一段的内容“As with any work of art, the merit of Chapman Kelley’s ‘Wildflower Works I’ was in the eye of the beholder. 在查普曼·凯利的作品‘野花工程’中，观众们看到了它的价值所在，如同他们从所有艺术作品中看到的一样。”可知，B项“公众很欣赏野花工程I的价值”符合题意。A项“公众对野花工程I不是很重视”，C项“公众要忍受野花工程I的不雅”，D项“公众对野花工程I有自己的观点”，这三项都和文中第一段表达的意思不符合。
