105 | P a g e
by about 50C. The elderly were most affected, with a 70 per cent increase in mortality
rate in those aged 75-94.
I For Britain, the year as a whole is likely to be the warmest ever recorded, but despite
the high temperature record on 10 August, the summer itself - defined as the June, July
and August period - still comes behind 1976 and 1995
，
when there were longer periods
of intense heat. At the moment, the year is on course to be the third-hottest ever in the
global temperature record, which goes back to 1856, behind 1998 and 2002 but when all
the records for October, November and December are collated, it might move into second
place, Professor Jones said. The 10 hottest years in the record have all now occurred
since 1990. Professor Jones is in no doubt about the astonishing nature of European
summer of 2003."The temperatures recorded were out of all proportion to the previous
record," he said. "It was the warmest summer in the past 500 years and probably way
beyond that It was enormously exceptional."
J His colleagues at the University of East Anglia's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
Research are now planning a special study of it. "It was a summer that has not: been
experienced before, either in terms of the temperature extremes that were reached, or
the range and diversity of the impacts of the extreme heat," said the centre’s executive
director, Professor Mike Hulme. "It will certainly have left its mark on a number of
countries, as to how they think and plan for climate change in the future, much as the
2000 floods have revolutionised the way the Government is thinking about flooding in the
UK. "The 2003 heat wave will have similar repercussions across Europe."
Questions 14-19 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In
boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true FALSE if the statement is false NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
