SCIENTISTS
1. Scientists peer into the clouds near the top of the world, trying to solve a mystery and learn something new about global warming.
The mystery is the droplets of water in the clouds. With the North Pole just 685 miles away, they should be frozen, yet most of them are in a liquid state.
So the scientists are trying to determine whether the clouds are one of the causes—or effects—of the Earth’s warming atmosphere.
“Much to our surprise, we found that the Arctic clouds have got plenty of super-cooled liquid water inside them. Liquid water has even been detected in clouds at temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22° F),” said Taneil Uttal.
2.With NASA reporting that 2005 was the warmest year on record worldwide, the debate over global warming marches on, but not here. The American and Canadian scientists at the Eureka Weather Station in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut, like the Inuit who see their native habitat thaw, are beyond questioning the existence of climate change.
“If we compare the debate over the theory of evolution with the debate over the theory of global warming—global warming is a whole lot more certain at the moment,” said Jim Drummond, a Physics Professor at the University of Toronto.
“By and large,” he said, “we are now not arguing about whether global warming is going to happen; the argument has turned to: How big is it going to be?”
3. Uttal, Drummond and other American and Canadian scientists recently visited Eureka. an outpost established jointly by Canada and the United States in 1947, now equipped with instruments that sound like sci-fi inventions—the ozone spectrophotometer, for instance. or the tropospheric lidar. A liar, an amalgamation of ‘light’ and ‘radar’, uses laser light to detect atmospheric particles.
The new technology helps to better understand the impact of clouds on the Earth’s surface temperature. The clouds being studied here range from six miles high to almost touching the ground.
“For a couple of decades now, we have known that super-cooled liquid water droplets could exist in clouds,” Uttal said. “But the prevalence of it in the Arctic clouds was not really known until these specialised sensors started operating in the Arctic about eight years ago.” In Nunavut, the melting is keenly felt. “In the old days, we used to have 10 months of Winter, now it’s six,” said Simon Awa, an Inuit leader. “Every year, we’re getting winter later and later.”
4. For these 155,000 people of Canada, Greenland, Russia and the United States, it means less time to hunt caribou, walrus and polar bear. The permafrost—ground that is continually frozen for at least two years—is thawing, imperilling polar bears and forcing other animals to migrate farther north. “
The walrus has moved farther away,” said Awa. “So you’re taking more time out, away on the land hunting.” Meanwhile, families back home are forced to eat store-bought food that is costlier and less healthy. “
The majority of the world’s population hasn’t really felt the global warming,” said Awa. “But right now in the Arctic and in Nunavut, we’re really worried because it’s already affecting us.”
Russ Schnell, Director of the Observatory and Global Network Operations for NOAA, notes that climate change is cyclical—that the planet’s vegetation, over millions of years, sucks in carbon dioxide and spits out oxygen. “
All the carbon dioxide in the coal and oil was once it went into the oceans or into the ground—and now we’re
Word-Meanings
Part I. 1. peer (verb): scrutinize 2. mystery (noun): secret 3. droplets (noun): tiny drops of liquid 4. super (adjective): of extreme degree 5. detected (verb): found 6. transmit (verb): transfer
Para 2. 1. thaw (verb): melt 2. native (adjective): the place where a person is born and has lived the first few years of his life
Para 3. 1. equipped with (verb): prepared 2. instance (noun): example 3. impact (noun): effect 4. prevalence (noun): presence
Para 4. 1. caribou (noun): North-American deer 2. permafrost (noun): thick subsurface of soil that remains below freezing point 3. imperilling (verb): endangering 4. migrate (verb): move away
Questions:
1. Choose the correct option:
(a) According to the passage, which has been the warmest year so far?
(i) 2004 (ii) 2010 (iii) 2005 (iv) 2014
(b) When was Eureka, the weather station, established?
(i) 1995 (ii) 1947 (iii) 1950 (iv) 1972
(c)A liver was a………….. to detect atmospheric particles.
(i) radar (ii) sunlight (iii) laser light (iv) spectrophotometer
(d) The scientists were surprised to see …………..
(i) sooty clouds (ii) liquid water droplets in the Asian clouds
(iii) loss of carbon dioxide (iv) liquid water droplets in the Arctic clouds
(e) The word ‘thaw’ means ……………..
(i) melt (ii) freeze (iii) boil (iv) evaporate
(f) The word ‘imperil’ means ………………….
(i) danger (ii) to put in danger (iii) to count pearls (iv) submit
2.Answer the questions briefly:
(a) What is the mystery that scientists are trying to solve?
(b) What surprised the scientists?
(c) What has the majority of the world’s population not really felt?
(d) What has the effect of the thawing of permafrost led to?
(e) Find words from the passage which mean the same as the following:
(i) moving away (para 4) (ii) tiny drops of liquid (para 4)
Answers:
1. (a) iii (b) ii (c) iii (d) iv (e) i (f) ii
2.(a) Scientists are trying to solve the mystery of the droplets of water in the clouds near the North Pole.
(b) The presence of super cooled-liquid water droplets in the Arctic clouds surprised the scientists.
(c) The majority of the world’s population has not felt global warming.
(d) The thawing of the permafrost has resulted in endangering polar bears and compelling other animals to start migrating further north.
(e) (i) migrating (ii) droplets
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