英语科普小知识 世界最大冰川比想象中稳定.docVIP

For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of todays largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example -- when Earth was going through a warm period -- were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the worlds largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern, progressively warming world. However, a new groundbreaking study now challenges this thinking. ? Using the east coast of the United States as their laboratory, a research team led by David Rowley, CIFAR Senior Fellow and professor at the University of Chicago, has found that Earths hot mantle pushed up segments of ancient shorelines over millions of years, making them appear higher now than they originally were millions of years ago. ? Our findings suggest that the previous connections scientists made between ancient shoreline height and ice volumes are?erroneous（错误的）?and that perhaps our ice sheets were more stable in the past than we originally thought, says Rowley. Our study is telling scientists that they can no longer ignore the effect of Earths interior dynamics when predicting historic sea levels and ice volumes. ? The study, published online in Science on May 16, was a collaboration that included CIFAR Senior Fellows Alessandro Forte (Université du Québec à Montréal) and Jerry Mitrovica (Harvard), and a former CIFAR-supported post-doctoral fellow Rob Moucha (Syracuse). ? This study was the culmination of years of work and deep collaboration by researchers in CIFARs program in Earth System Evolution, explains Rowley. For this study, each of us brought our individual expertise to the table: Rob and Alex worked on simulations of Earths mantle dynamics, Jerry provided calculations on how glaciers warp Earths surface, and I shaped our understanding of the geology of the la