時事単語＆ニュース（６）
ジャパンタイムズよりの温暖化関連の記事です。'98 Arctic thaw laid to warm ocean, not hot airA group of researchers said Thursday that the drastic ice shrinkage in the Arctic Ocean from 1997 to 1998 was triggered by the flow to the area of warm water from the Pacific Ocean, not by atmospheric impact as previously thought.The researchers, including those from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, said the warm water flow is also the reason why the ice has not returned to its previous level.JAMSTEC's Koji Shimada, the group's subleader, said the shrinkage was particularly severe in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean.The ocean was 60 percent to 80 percent covered by ice during the summer from the 1980s to mid-1990s, but it decreased to 15 percent to 30 percent after 1998, he said.Scientists initially believed that changes in the distribution of atmospheric pressure pushed out more ice to the Atlantic Ocean, but others questioned the theory because ice did not increase even after the distribution had since changed.The group said the temperature of the Arctic Ocean water in north Alaskan shores rose by up to 4 degrees from the previous year in the August-December period of 1997, about the same time as when ice drastically shrank.Waters from the Pacific were heated in the eastern Bering Sea because of the El Nino phenomenon occurring at the time, the group said.The group concluded that the flow of warm water was the cause of the ice shrinkage because it was evident only in the area where warm seawater flowed in.Once the ice shrinks, it will strengthen the sea current bringing warm Pacific water to the central part of the Arctic Ocean, prolonging a condition that makes it harder for the ice to form. For this reason, the amount of ice has not recovered to this day, the group said."As long as the ice does not recover, the distribution of atmospheric pressure will change above it and will not bring cold air even in the winter, possibly affecting the climate of Japan," Shimada said.難しい単語が使われていないので、比較的読みやすいと思います。地球温暖化（global warming）により極地の氷河（glacier）の面積が小さくなっているようです。このまま温暖化が進み、海面上昇（sea level rise）により洪水が多発するのか・・・また一気に氷河が溶けてしまうと海面の温度が下降し、デイ・アフター・トゥモローのように地球が返って冷やされて氷河期になってしまうのか・・・どちらにしても、怖いですね～。身近なところから環境問題（environmental problems）に取り組みましょう。
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