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ANNOTATION SAMPLE
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The headline of the article is The 100-Year Forecast: Very Hot, and Stormy. It was written by Kendall Hamilton and Kimberly Martineau and published in the Newsweek on 18 August 1997.
The article has the aim of shedding light on what the weather might be like in one hundred years.
First, Kendall Hamilton and Kimberly Martineau focus our attention on the fact that, according to scientists, the weather in the next millennium will be quite nasty. The authors go on to highlight the weather changes which are expected to take place due to global warming. These include warming of the average global temperature, which will go along with decreasing temperatures in some parts of the world such as Scandinavia and England and an increase in the number of hurricanes, storms, floods and droughts all over the world. The interrelations between warmer temperatures and the mentioned weather phenomena are explained.
This clearly and logically developed article is intended for the general reader wanting to understand the impact global warming is likely to have upon weather in the world and is remarkable for its clear popular scientific explanations, which are accessible even to a non-specialist.
ARTICLES FOR ANNOTATING
Тext 1
The 100-Year Forecast: Very Hot, and Stormy
by Kendall Hamilton and Kimberly Martineau
If you want to know what the weather's going to be like this weekend, ask a weatherman. If you want to know what it'll be like in 100 years, ask a scientist. Forecasts are always iffy, but current thinking suggests that as we sail into the next millennium, we may want to batten down the hatches. It looks like we're in for nasty weather.
The most significant influence on the weather of the future is likely to be global warming. The prevailing view among climatologists is that emissions of so-called “greenhouse gases'', which trap heat in the earth's atmosphere - are at least partly responsible for warming the average global temperature by about one degree over the past 100 years. The next hundred years, most scientists agree, will see the earth heat up further.
Precisely what such temperature changes will mean to weather patterns is tricky to predict with certainty, because weather is the product of so many interrelated variables. But at its simplest level, global warming will, for many, mean just that. Has this summer been hot enough for you? Just wait. In time, the number of days that the mercury hits 90 degrees in New York could double, to 30 a year. In Atlanta, the entire summer might be northward of 90. Projected global temperature changes are only averages, though. Some areas could actually get colder. Mark Meier, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado, says that Norway and other parts of Scandinavia seem to be building up glacier mass, even as the world's glaciers on average are thinning. And certainly, temperature changes can affect weather in roundabout ways. An influx of extra water from melting glaciers, for example, might disrupt the Gulf Stream, an Atlantic Ocean current that brings warmth from the tropics to Western Europe. Without the current, England could get as cold as Greenland in winter. Stiff upper lip, indeed.
Between bouts of sweating or shivering, our descendants may while away the time in their basements. Warmer temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates, priming the atmosphere for all manner of hurricanes and heavy storms. Between 1970 and 1994, the United States and the Caribbean saw a 10 percent increase in the atmospheric-moisture level, which meant a 10 percent boost in precipitation, says Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Expect more of the same if temperatures climb. Rain-swollen rivers, storm-eroded beaches and sea levels pumped up by melting glaciers could mean more flooding. Paradoxically, drought stands to be a problem as well. Hot weather causes short, heavy bursts of rain, but the water “doesn't soak in nicely,'' says Adam Markham, a climate expert at the World Wildlife Fund. “You'll get more rain, but also more drying of the soil.''
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