Climate

A) (За) the last hundred years the climate has been growing much warmer. This has had a number of different effects. (С) the beginning of the twentieth century, glaciers have been melting very rapidly. (Например), the Muir Glacier in Alaska has retreated two miles in ten years. (Во-вторых), rising, temperatures have been causing the snowline to retreat on mountains all over the world. In Peru, (например), it has risen as much as 2700 feet in 60 years.

(В результате) of this, vegetation has also been changing. In Canada, the agricultural cropline has shifted 50 to 100 miles northward. In the same way cool-climate trees (такие как) birches and spruce have been dying over large areas of Eastern Canada. In Sweden the treeline has moved up the mountains by (вплоть до) 65 feet since 1930.

The distribution of wildlife has also been affected, many European animals moving northwards into Scandinavia. (С) 1918, 25 new species of birds have been seen in Greenland, and in the United States birds have moved their nests to the north.

(В конце концов) the sea has been rising at a rapidly increasing rate, (в основном благодаря), as was mentioned above, to the melting of glaciers. In the last 18 years it has risen by about six inches, which is about four times the average rate of rise (за последние) 9000 years.

3.9. Read the following text carefully. Then complete the table after it.