What’s New? The Antarctic is Turning Green.

History Topic! Land Discovery of The Antarctic in 1675.

Conversation Topic. Leading Statements and Questions.

Speaking Practice. Creating Dialog with Leading Questions.

Basic Grammar Review. Prepositions of Place, Movement and Time.

English Grammar. Reported Speech.

Scientists say the frozen continent is likely to ‘alter rapidly under  future warming, leading to major changes in the biology and landscape of  this iconic region. The Antarctic is turning green with rising  temperatures having a “dramatic effect” on the growth of moss in the  frozen continent, scientists have discovered. Since 1950, temperatures  in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by about half a degree Celsius  each decade. This is much faster than the global average.

Growth rates of moss since 1950 have been running at four to five times  the level before. This is according to a study by UK-based researchers  who studied three sites across a 1,000km stretch of the peninsula. In  addition to climate change, the extinction of animal species is  prolific. Plastic waste, fossil fuel ash and radioactive particles from  nuclear bomb tests will all leave a permanent record in the planet’s  future rocks.

“Between 1950 and 2000, temperatures increased by half a degree per  decade on average,” said Dr Amesbury of Exeter University. “The reason  we are so confident the moss is responding primarily to temperature, is  because of the wide-scale response we see in our moss banks from three  different sites that stretch 1,000km across the Antarctic Peninsula.”

The researchers who reported the results of their study in an  open-access paper in the journal “Cell Biology”, also looked into how  sensitive the moss would be to further warming. “The results of that  analysis lead us to believe there will be a future ‘greening’ of the  Antarctic and a further increase in moss growth rates. “We are likely to  see massive amounts of moss colonizing new areas of ice-free land  created by the warmer climate.

Thank you Wiki.

The first Antarctic land discovered was the island of South Georgia,  visited by the English merchant Anthony de la Roché in 1675. Although  myths and speculation about a Terra Australis (“Southern Land”) date  back to antiquity, the first confirmed sighting of the continent of  Antarctica is commonly accepted to have occurred in 1820 by a Russian  expedition. The first human born in the Antarctic was Solveig Jacobsen.  He was born on 8 October 1913 in South Georgia.

“Indirect reported speech” is when we refer to a statement or fact from  the past and go back one tense in our statement. So, if someone said “I  am hungry” we would say “He said he was hungry”. Notice how the verb “To  be” changed from “Am to Was”. In this example, we went back one tense  to refer to what was said.

Read more here https://larisaenglishclub.com/pdf-resources/larisa-english-club-5-pdf-version/