字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Southwest's Conifers Face Trial by Climate Change
氣候變化影響西南部針葉林生長

洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voas…/2016/20160115sa_earth.mp3

只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

中英文稿：
As you sit round the Christmas tree, consider the TLC you give O Tannenbaum: plenty of water and a relatively comfortable climate. Wouldn't want to dry out the tree, after all. Now consider that in the house we all live in—the planet—we're hardly giving the same courtesy to your Christmas tree's wild cousins. (Who, I might add, are actually still alive.)
當你圍著聖誕樹而坐，想著自己對它的體貼照料：足量的水、舒適的環境。你從不會想到它會乾枯而死。現在想想我們居住的房子——地球——我們從未向對待聖誕樹的野生堂兄妹(補充一下，如果它們實際上還活著)那樣禮待它。

As the planet warms, droughts are getting even drier—and they're getting hotter too. In fact it's getting so bad that researchers are now forecasting that conifers in the arid southwestern United States could be completely wiped out by the end of the century. No more pinyon pines, ponderosas or junipers. No more forests.
隨著地球變暖，乾旱變得越來越嚴峻——天氣也愈加炎熱。實際上，情況變得非常糟糕，研究人員預測，美國西南部的針葉樹可能會在本世紀末徹底滅絕。那時候沒有矮松樹、黃松樹、還有刺柏。也沒有森林。

"It's definitely a distressing result for all of us. None of us want to see this happen. It's a bummer, honestly." Sara Rauscher, a climate scientist and geographer at the University of Delaware. She and her colleagues gathered data on how real -world evergreens in the southwest respond to drought and heat—they basically starve, unable to carry on photosynthesis or transport water.
“那對我們來說，是一個令人心痛的結果，我們都不想要看到這種情況發生。真的。”Sara Rauscher是特拉華大學氣候學家和地理學家。她和同事們蒐集美國西南部常青樹如何應對乾旱和高溫的數據——樹木在飢餓時，不能夠進行光合作用和運輸水分。

The researchers then combined those physiological data with a half dozen projections of how climate change might proceed. "But no matter what model we used, we always saw tree death." Specifically, 72 percent of the trees dead by 2050, and a near- complete annihilation by the year 2100. The results are in the journalNature Climate Change.
研究人員將這些樹木的生理數據和未來氣候變化的預測相結合。“無論我們使用何種模型，得到的結果都是樹木會死亡。確切地說，截止到2050年”72%的樹木會死亡，2100年，所有的樹木都會消失。該研究結果發表在《氣候變化》雜誌上。

But we'll always have Paris, right? "Even if we used a scenario similar to what the Paris accords have agreed upon—so limiting global warming to 2 degrees—we still saw widespread die-off. It happened later in the century, but it still happened." That said, the study does not account for trees' ability to adapt, or whether new populations could find friendlier climes. That is, whether conifers in the southwest can pull up roots fast enough to beat climate change.
但是未來，我們還有巴黎存在。即使我們應用巴黎協定規定的類似的場景——將全球變暖的溫度控製到2度，在本世紀末，這上述局面才會出現。也就是說，以上研究沒有考慮樹木的適應能力或者未來種類能夠找到更適合自身生長的地方。即美國西南部的針葉樹可轉移陣地擊敗氣候變化。