VOA慢速英语20060704b

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - Gore¹'s Movie Heats Up Discussion of Global Warming (and Has His Critics Steaming)By Caty Weaver² and George Grow

Broadcast: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 16:00:00 UTC

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VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty³.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Pat Bodnar. This week: Reaction to Al Gore's movie about global warming ...

VOICE ONE:

And European astronomers⁴ find an unusual planetary system.

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VOICE TWO:


Al Gore talks about global warming

Former Vice⁵ President Al Gore is starring in a new movie called An Inconvenient⁶ Truth. It is a documentary about global warming. This is a subject that Mister Gore has been interested in for many years.

For the past six years, Mister Gore has been traveling around the country and the world giving talks about global warming. He has given the talks more than one thousand times. Most of An Inconvenient Truth is filmed at these events.

Mister Gore speaks to groups of people with a big screen behind him. Satellite pictures, scientific models, graphs and other images appear on the screen as he talks.

VOICE ONE:

The subject of global warming has been debated for years. Factories, power stations and vehicles produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases trap warm air in the atmosphere. Most climate scientists believe these gases are responsible, at least in part, for temperature increases on Earth. The debate centers on the extent to which greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming.

In the movie, Al Gore reports about the sharp increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the last fifty years. He compares countries around the world and their share of carbon dioxide releases. He also shows a similar increase in the Earth's temperature.

He shows melting glaciers⁷ and huge pieces of ice crashing into the ocean. He provides biological examples of global warming. He shows tropical animals, plants and diseases on the move northward⁸ as temperatures increase. And he shows a model of rising sea levels spreading over southern Florida, parts of India, Africa and other areas in the world. He also discusses the population explosion in the world and its increasing problems for the planet.

VOICE TWO:

Critics of the movie say Mister Gore is using the issue of global warming and his movie for a political campaign. They say he plans to run for president again. Mister Gore says he has no such plans.

Critics also say Mister Gore's warnings about what will happen if global warming continues are based more on guesswork than science. Richard Lindzen is a professor of Atmospheric⁹ Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He strongly criticized Mister Gore's movie in the Wall Street Journal newspaper.

VOICE ONE:

Mister Lindzen protested one of Mister Gore's major points of argument. The professor wrote it was wrong for Mister Gore to state that there is general agreement among scientists about global warming. For example, he argued that most evidence suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is growing, not shrinking.

He wrote that warming temperatures are not necessarily the cause of glacial melt. He wrote that glaciers retreat and advance unexpectedly and for reasons science cannot explain. He also wrote that the disease malaria¹⁰ was once common in the northern American state of Michigan and in Siberia.

VOICE TWO:

However, other scientists who saw the movie say Mister Gore's facts are generally right. The Associated Press said it had spoken to nineteen climate experts who saw the movie and generally approved of how the science was presented.

A new report also supports Mister Gore's movie. An independent group of scientists in the United States generally confirmed the findings of a major study on global warming from nineteen ninety-nine. The study had been disputed since its release.

A group of twelve scientists organized by the National Research Council now says they generally support the study's main finding. It found that the last few decades of the twentieth century were warmer than any comparable period in the last four hundred years.

VOICE ONE:

The United States Congress had asked the National Research Council to investigate the global warming study. The council is part of the leading scientific organization in the United States, the National Academies. It advises the American government and citizens about scientific issues.

Michael Mann was the climatologist who led the study that was examined. He was a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst at the time.

The study was the first of its kind. It combined many different methods for estimating surface temperatures historically. These included examinations of rings on very old trees, studies of growth and loss of glaciers, cave research and many other methods. The evidence from all the sources was then organized to try to provide a whole picture of climate changes in the past one thousand years.

VOICE TWO:

The model of climate change it provided has been nicknamed the hockey stick after a stick used to play the sport of hockey. The graph shows a timeline at the bottom and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on the side. The levels are mostly the same for hundreds of years but rise sharply toward the end of the timeline that represents the last hundred years or so.

Scientists at the American space agency, NASA, study climate change from direct temperature measurement. They report that two thousand five was the hottest year ever recorded.

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VOICE ONE:

You are listening to SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

European astronomers have discovered a planetary system with at least three planets. These are all low mass and similar in size to Neptune¹¹ in our own solar system. The planets orbit a star about forty-one light years from Earth. One light year is a distance of more than nine million million kilometers.

The star is named HD six-nine-eight-three-zero. It has a little less mass than our sun. It is part of the star group Puppis, the constellation¹² known as the Stern.

The astronomers used a European Southern Observatory¹³ telescope in South America, at La Silla, in Chile. Their report appeared in Nature magazine. The lead writer was Christophe Lovis from the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

VOICE TWO:

They discovered the planets with an instrument called the High Accuracy Radial Velocity¹⁴ Planet Searcher, or HARPS¹⁵. They did not see the planets. Instead, they used a system of indirect observation.

As the Planetary Society explains on its Web site, planetary.org, a star does not remain completely still when it is orbited by a planet. Instead, it moves in a very small circle in reaction to the gravitational pull of the planet.

So, planet hunters use a spectrograph to measure the movement of stars. Newer instruments can measure extremely small changes in speed. In this case, the HARPS spectrograph measured the movement of the star at between two and three meters a second.

VOICE ONE:

The radial velocity method has led to the discovery of almost all the planets found outside our solar system. Since nineteen ninety-five, scientists have found almost two hundred planets.

But this is the first planetary system where all the planets are similar in mass to Neptune. In other systems, at least one of the planets is the size of Jupiter, hundreds of times bigger than Earth.

In this one, the smallest planet is about ten times the mass of Earth. The largest is about eighteen times as big.

Something else also makes this planetary system interesting. Scientists recently found that the star could also have an asteroid¹⁶ belt. The main asteroid belt in our solar system orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids¹⁷ are rocky objects thought to be left over from the formation of the universe.

VOICE TWO:

The three planets orbit the star in periods of nine days, thirty-two days and one hundred ninety-seven days.

The astronomers believe the planet closest to the star is rocky. The middle one is probably a mixture of rock and gas. And the one farthest away probably produced some ice during its formation. It is likely to have a rocky, icy center. The outer planet also orbits within the so-called habitable zone of the star. That means liquid water could exist at the surface.

Because of its heavy mass, however, this planet is probably not like Earth. The atmosphere is most likely hydrogen. Still, the astronomers say this newly found planetary system has a lot in common with our own.

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VOICE ONE:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Caty Weaver and George Grow and produced by Brianna Blake. You can download free transcripts¹⁸ and audio of our shows at www.unsv.com. I'm Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Pat Bodnar. We hope you can join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

1 gore   

n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶

参考例句：

• The fox lay dying in a pool of gore.狐狸倒在血泊中奄奄一息。
• Carruthers had been gored by a rhinoceros.卡拉瑟斯被犀牛顶伤了。

2 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

3 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

4 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

6 inconvenient   

adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的

参考例句：

• You have come at a very inconvenient time.你来得最不适时。
• Will it be inconvenient for him to attend that meeting?他参加那次会议会不方便吗？

7 glaciers   

冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
• It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

8 northward   

adv.向北；n.北方的地区

参考例句：

• He pointed his boat northward.他将船驶向北方。
• I would have a chance to head northward quickly.我就很快有机会去北方了。

9 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

10 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

11 Neptune   

n.海王星

参考例句：

• Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun.海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Neptune turned out to be a dynamic,stormy world.海王星原来是个有生气、多风暴的世界。

12 constellation   

n.星座n.灿烂的一群

参考例句：

• A constellation is a pattern of stars as seen from the earth. 一个星座只是从地球上看到的某些恒星的一种样子。
• The Big Dipper is not by itself a constellation. 北斗七星本身不是一个星座。

13 observatory   

n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台

参考例句：

• Guy's house was close to the observatory.盖伊的房子离天文台很近。
• Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.格林威治天文台的职员们每天对大钟检查两次。

14 velocity   

n.速度，速率

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory links energy with mass and velocity of light.爱因斯坦的理论把能量同质量和光速联系起来。
• The velocity of light is about 300000 kilometres per second.光速约为每秒300000公里。

15 harps   

abbr.harpsichord 拨弦古钢琴n.竖琴( harp的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She continually harps on lack of money. 她总唠叨说缺钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He could turn on the harps of the blessed. 他能召来天使的竖琴为他奏乐。 来自辞典例句

16 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

17 asteroids   

n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 )；海盘车，海星

参考例句：

• Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星，亦称为“小型行星”，在外太空中不计其数。
• Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。

18 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句