Unit 4 Global warming 全球变暖早已成为不争的事实,并且有加剧的趋势
那么这会对北极地区造成什么样的影响呢
A nearly icefree Arctic Ocean in summer may happen three times sooner than scientists have assessed
New research says the Arctic might lose most of its ice cover in summer in as few as 30 years instead of the end of the century
The amount of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice at the end of summer by then could be only about one million square kilometres
That's compared with today's ice extent (范围) of 4
6 million square kilometres — so much more open water could be a boon for shipping and for extracting (开采) minerals and oil from the sea bed, but it raises the question of ecosystem change
While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 assessed what might happen in the Arctic in the future based on results