▶ Your Answer :According to the reading passage, the
Little Ice Age was a period of declined global temperature. The author in the
reading passage said that there are theories that cause of the Little Ice Age.
However, the professor in the lecture gives several reasons as a rebuttal to
the author’s
point.
First of all, the professor contends that it
cannot prove that the Little Ice Age did occur due to the decrease in solar
radiation reaching the planet. In the passage, a sunspot is dark shapes that
appear on the surface of the sun, and it depends on the amount of energy being
emitted by the Sun. However, a recent study shows that the lessen of sunspots
does not reduce solar radiation. This means the number of sunspots is not
related to solar radiation. This casts doubt on the reading passage’s claim that less solar radiation
triggers the Little Ice Age since the low amount of sunspot cause decreasing of
solar radiation.
Second, the professor argues that the Little
Ice Age was not triggered by a volcanic eruption, Mount Rinjani. This is due to
the fact that although the massive dust and ash covered the atmosphere, the
dust and ash didn’t take a long time.
Therefore, since the period lasted over the five hundred years, it could not be
the main factor to make the Earth cooler. This counters the reading passage’s claim that the Little Age was the result of volcanic eruption
since the volcanic eruption hindered the solar radiation to reach to the
Earth.
Finally, the professor insists that global
cooling was not caused by a lot of reflectivity. To be specific, the cloud is
one of the main factors to cause reflect sunlight. However, the number of
clouds was low due to the cooling of the ocean. Therefore, although the low
temperature created glaciers and snow cover on the surface, the amount of
reflection of the sunlight did not increase a lot. This refutes the reading
passage’s claim that the
increase of reflectivity triggered by ice and snow resulted in the Little Ice
Age. |