The ocean covers 70.8% of the Earth's surface.That share is____1____ up.Averaged across the globe, sea levels are 20cm higher today than they were before people_____2___suffusing the atmosphere with greenhouse gases in the late 1800s.They are ____3____ to rise by a further half-metre or so in the next 80 years; in some places, they could go up by twice as much-and more when amplified by storm____4____ like the one that Hurricane Sandy propelled into New York in 2012.____5____ flood plains are expected to grow by 12-20%, or 70,000-100,000 square kilometers, this century.That area,____6____the size of Austria or Maine, is home to masses of people and capital in booming sea-facing metropolises.One in seven of Earth's 7.5bn people already lives less than ten meters above sea lev-el; by 2050, 1.4bn will.____7____atolls like Kiribati may be permanently submerged.Assets worth tril-lions of dollars—including China's vast manufacturing cluster in the Pearl river delta and innumer-able military bases—have been built in places that could often find themselves underwater.
The___8_____ of the sea level is not mysterious.Seawater expands when heated and rises more when topped up by melt water from sweating glaciers and ice caps.True, scientists debate just how high the seas can rise and how quickly and politicians and economists are at odds____9____ how best to deal with the consequences—flooding, erosion, the poisoning of farmland by brine.Yet argument is no____10____for inaction.The need to adapt to higher seas is now a fact of life.
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海洋覆盖了地球表面面积的70.8%，且这一数据仍在上升。根据全球平均水平，当今海平面比19世纪后期人们开始排放温室气体时要高出20厘米。在接下来的80年里，预计海平面还会上升半米左右。在一些地方，海平面可能会上升两倍，而在风暴肆虐的地区甚至会上升得更高，就像2012年飓风桑迪袭击纽约时那样。本世纪，沿海洪泛平原的面积预计将增长12%-20%，即70 000-100 000平方千米。这一面积相当于奥地利或缅因州，它是人类的家园，矗立着繁华的沿海大都市。地球上75亿人口中有七分之一的人生活在海拔不到10米的地区。到2050年，这一人口将达到14亿。而像基里巴斯这样地势低洼的环状珊瑚岛可能会被永久淹没。到那时，价值数万亿美元的资产，包括中国珠江三角洲庞大的制造业和无数的军事基地都将位于海平面之下。海平面的物理特性并不神秘。海水受热会膨胀，当冰川和冰盖融化时，海平面就会上升。确实，科学家们正在讨论海洋上升的高度和速度，而政治家和经济学家就如何最好地解决洪水、侵蚀、盐碱地等问题争论。然而，争论不是无作为的借口。适应海平面上升的需要现在已成为生活中的事实。