▶ Your Answer : It is controversial over what the cause of the little ice age were. The reading passages provide three reasons of the little ice age by giving three piece of evidence. On the other hand, the professor contradicts the reading passage's argument by offering three compelling rebuttals.
To begin with, the lecturer contends that the effect of disruption of ocean flows was not powerful enough to affect all over the world. So, the temperature of the northern hemisphere would had been only affected by the influence. However, the temperature of the southern hemisphere area, such as the South Africa, also decreased a lot. Therefore, the explanation seems to be not reasonable. This casts doubt about reading passage's contention that the temperature would have decreased due to the influx of a large amount of fresh water.
Next, the speaker argues that the effect of the eruption of volcanos were not likely to have a effect on the global temperature at all. The great eruption would have been noticed by people because it emitted the great amount of dusts and coulds. However, there was no record about such a event. It shows that the volcanic eruption would have been so weak, so there was only a little effect on the Earth. This refutes the reading passage's argument that the dusts and clouds emitted by the volcanic eruption would have blocked the solar radiation, so the average temperature of the Earth would have been decreased considerably.
Finally, the professor asserts that there was not enough time to affect the global temperature of the plenet due to decrease in human population. The effects of the forest should have enough time to work, but the time span of the ice age was too short to have a great effect on the Earth. This challenges the reading passage's suggestion that decrease in human population would have made the Earth's temperature decrease because it would have caused the forests to grow well. This lead the amount of the carbon dioxide to decrease which is a main green house gas. |