字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：California Mountain Snowpack Is Flaking Out  加州雪山積雪融化

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/voaspe/…/20150928sa_science.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：
California's been in the grips of a record-setting drought since 2012. But don't just blame a lack of precipitation. "It's nothing exceptional in the context of the last 1,000 years. However—higher temperatures, this is the feature of this drought."
加州創造了自2012年以來的乾旱記錄。但是，別只是指責雨水不充足。1000年以來，這種雨水缺少的天氣，並沒有什麼差別。但是——溫度升高，是這次乾旱的特徵。

Soumaya Belmecheri, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona. She and her colleagues used two different sets of historic tree ring records to reconstruct 500 years of climate history: blue oak tree rings as a proxy for winter precipitation, and another set of rings from a variety of trees, as a proxy for winter temperatures. The tree ring data made it possible to model Sierra Nevada snowpack going back to the year 1500. And the researchers found that today's snowpack is just five percent of its average level over the last five centuries. Please visit www.chinavoa.com to get mre information.The finding is in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Soumaya Belmecheri是美國亞利桑那大學的一名古生物學家。她和同事們使用兩種不同的歷史上樹木年輪的記錄來重現500年來的氣候歷史：藍色橡樹的年輪可 以代表冬天的降水，其他不同種類樹木的年輪可以代表冬天的溫度。樹木年輪的資料可以用來類比內華達山脈1500年前積雪場的情況。研究者們發現，現在積雪 場的平均積雪量僅是500年以前積雪量的5%。該研究結果發表在《自然氣候變化》雜誌上。

Belmecheri says that the decline in snowpack is a big deal in a place like California, with its Mediterranean-like climate. "You can think about it like a water bank that can be used later in the spring and the summer when it melts." But since temperatures don't look to be on a downturn, she says we should not necessarily focus on filling that snow "bank" anymore—perhaps we should just change banks.
Soumaya 稱像加州這樣的地中海氣候的地方，積雪數量減少是一件大事。“你可以將它想像成一大水庫，當積雪融化後，積水可以在春季和夏季使用。但是因為溫度並沒有下降，她稱，我們目前沒必要關注“積雪庫”的輸入——也許我們只需要關注水庫的變化。

"Maybe snowpack in the Sierra Nevada will no longer be a reliable source of water. So maybe a system that is more resilient to this type of drought should be thought of and designed and put in place, including maybe changing where the water is captured. If it's going to rain more than snow in the future, maybe we should capture that rain." And tomorrow's rains, she says, may not fall where today's reservoirs are. Something for policymakers in California to think about, if they want to keep their state above water.
“也許內華達山脈的積雪已經不再是水源的可靠來源。所以，或許應該考慮、設計並應用針對這種乾旱更具彈性的系統，其中系統中應該包括改變水源的攝取地點。 如果，未來降雨量多於降雪量，或許我們應該直接攝取雨水。或許未來的降水，她稱，不會降到現在水庫的位置。加州的決策者們，如果想要讓加州有水的話，或者 應該考慮一下這件事情。