新托福听写训练 第17期

Listen to part of the lecture in a class on earth science.

We've been talking about some of the affects that the human beings so act on the earth. One that you may be not aware of is that we've actually begun to change the length of the day. The other we say that one day is the amount of time the earth need to spin completely around on axis¹. And the imagery line runs through the center of the earth from the north to south. And of course there are a lot of physical causes they can affect the spin of the earth rotation² but there is only one that can direct result of the human activity. Since 1950, human beings have built about ten thousand of artificial reservoirs all over the world. These reservoirs have redistributed tremendous amount of the earth water. When they are used to be in the area near the equator and the imagery line on surround the middle of the earth is now reservoirs in the areas of different latitudes⁴. The latitude³ matters because, well, think of the earth and its axis. The equator contains the areas on the earth that are farthest way from axis, so water has been redistributed from equator? Reasons, then whatever the water is, it's close to the earth axis. It's like when ice skaters perform spins, when those skaters put their arms enclose to their bodies, they spin faster. So the earth is spinning faster because the reservoirs have redistributed the water closer to its axis. And because the earth spinning fast, since 1950 the length of the day has decreased by about 8 millionth of a seconds. I know that doesn't sound much, but the significant in that this is the first time that human beings ever had miserable⁵ affected⁶ on the earth motion.

1 axis   

n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线

参考例句：

• The earth's axis is the line between the North and South Poles.地轴是南北极之间的线。
• The axis of a circle is its diameter.圆的轴线是其直径。

2 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。

3 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

4 latitudes   

纬度

参考例句：

• Latitudes are the lines that go from east to west. 纬线是从东到西的线。
• It was the brief Indian Summer of the high latitudes. 这是高纬度地方的那种短暂的晚秋。

5 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

6 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。