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RachelPike_2009G-_气候头条新闻背后的科学_
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| I'd like to talk to you today about the scale of the scientific effort that goes into making the headlines you see in the paper. |
今天我想跟大家说说 有关于报纸头条新闻背后的 科学家们所付出的努力 |
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scale:n.规模;比例;鳞;刻度;天平;数值范围;v.衡量;攀登;剥落;生水垢; scientific:adj.科学的,系统的;
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| Headlines that look like this when they have to do with climate change, and headlines that look like this when they have to do with air quality or smog. |
事关气候变化时,报纸头版是这样的 这个是关于空气质量和烟雾的头条 |
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have to do with:与…有关; air quality:n.空气质量;
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| They are both two branches of the same field of atmospheric science. |
它们是大气科学的两个分支 |
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atmospheric:adj.大气的,大气层的;
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| Recently the headlines looked like this when the Intergovernmental |
这是最近的报纸头条, |
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Recently:adv.最近;新近; Intergovernmental:adj.政府间的;
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| Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, put out their report on the state of understanding of the atmospheric system. |
当时,联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会,即IPCC 发布了一份针对理解大气系统形势的报告 |
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Panel:n.镶板;仪表盘;钣金;(衣服上的)镶条;v.镶板(用木或玻璃板等镶嵌或装饰);
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| That report was written by 620 scientists from 40 countries. |
这份报告由来自40个国家的 共620名科学家撰写 |
| They wrote almost a thousand pages on the topic. |
在这个主题上,他们倾注了近一千页的努力 |
| And all of those pages were reviewed by another 400-plus scientists and reviewers , from 113 countries. |
同时,来自113个国家的400多位科学家 和观察员审读了整份报告 |
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reviewed:v.复习;评估;评论;检讨;(review的过去分词形式) reviewers:n.评论者(reviewer的复数);评审员;
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| It's a big community . It's such a big community, in fact, that our annual gathering is the largest [phy sical] scientific meeting in the world. |
这是一个很大的群体, 事实上,我们年会是全球物理学界最大的会议 |
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community:n.社区;[生态]群落;共同体;团体;
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| Over 15,000 scientists go to San Francisco every year for that. |
每年开会时,逾15000名科学家云集洛杉矶 |
| And every one of those scientists is in a research group, and every research group studies a wide variety of topics. |
他们中的每一个都代表着一个研究小组 以及每个小组的大量研究课题 |
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variety:n.多样;种类;杂耍;变化,多样化;
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| For us at Cambridge , it's as varied as the El Ni?o oscillation , which affects weather and climate, to the assimilation of satellite data, to emissions from crops that produce biofuels , which is what I happen to study. |
在剑桥,我们的研究方向各式各样 有影响天气和气候的厄尔尼诺现象 有卫星数据同化 还有生产生物燃料的农作物的排放,这也是我正好在研究的 |
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Cambridge:n.剑桥(英国城市);坎布里奇(美国马萨诸塞州城市); varied:adj.多变的;各式各样的;杂色的;v.改变;使多样化;(vary的过去式和过去分词) oscillation:n.振荡;振动;摆动; assimilation:n.同化;吸收;[生化]同化作用; emissions:n.(光、热、气等的)发出,排放;排放物;散发物;(emission的复数) biofuels:n.[能源]生物燃料;生质燃料;生质能源(biofuel的复数形式);
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| And in each one of these research areas, of which there are even more, there are PhD students, like me, and we study incredibly narrow topics, things as narrow as a few processes or a few molecules . |
在每一个研究领域里,当然远不止这些 都有像我这样的博士生 我们都在研究非常狭窄的课题 窄到只是寥寥几个反应或者几个分子 |
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incredibly:adv.难以置信地;非常地; narrow:adj.狭窄的; v.使窄小; n.峡谷; (场所,物品等的)狭窄部分; processes:n.过程; v.处理(process的第三人称单数形式); molecules:n.[化学]分子,微粒;[化学]摩尔(molecule的复数);
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| And one of the molecules I study is called isoprene , which is here. It's a small organic molecule. You've probably never heard of it. |
我正在研究其中一种叫异戊二烯的分子 大家看,是种小有机分子,你们可能从未听过 |
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isoprene:n.[有化]异戊二烯;橡胶基质; organic:adj.有机的;不使用化肥的;绿色的;有机物的;n.分子有机体;
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| The weight of a paper clip is approximately equal to 900 zeta-illion -- 10 to the 21st -- molecules of isoprene. |
一个回形针的质量大约等同于 10的21次方个异戊二烯分子 |
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paper clip:回形针; approximately:adv.大约,近似地;近于;
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| But despite its very small weight, enough of it is emitted into the atmosphere every year to equal the weight of all the people on the planet. |
尽管这种分子很轻 每年排放到大气中的该种分子的质量相当于 地球上所有人类的体重总和 |
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despite:prep.尽管,不管;n.轻视;憎恨;侮辱; emitted:adj.射出的;v.排放(emit的过去分词);发散; atmosphere:n.大气;气氛;气压;风格;
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| It's a huge amount of stuff . It's equal to the weight of methane . |
这可是很大一堆东西,跟甲烷的总质量相当了 |
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stuff:n.东西:物品:基本特征:v.填满:装满:标本: methane:n.[有化]甲烷;[能源]沼气;
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| And because it's so much stuff, it's really important for the atmospheric system. |
正因如此,这种分子对大气系统举足轻重 |
| Because it's important to the atmospheric system, we go to all lengths to study this thing. |
这种分子是如此重要 以至于我们不遗余力的去研究它 |
| We blow it up and look at the pieces. |
我们使它进行化学反应,然后看看反应遗留的分子碎片 |
| This is the EUPHORE Smog Chamber in Spain. |
这是位于西班牙的EUPHORE装置的烟雾室 |
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Chamber:n.(身体或器官内的)室,膛; adj.室内的; vt.把…关在室内;
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| Atmospheric explosions , or full combustion , takes about 15,000 times longer than what happens in your car. |
分子在大气中经过充分的燃烧 这个过程所花费的时间比在你车里反应所花的长15000倍 |
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explosions:n.[力]爆炸;爆发(explosion的复数);怒气大作; combustion:n.燃烧,氧化;骚动;
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| But still, we look at the pieces. |
即便如此,我们仍然观察反应结果 |
| We run enormous models on supercomputers; this is what I happen to do. |
我们在超级计算机上运行大量的模型 这正好是我在干的事 |
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enormous:adj.庞大的,巨大的;凶暴的,极恶的;
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| Our models have hundreds of thousands of grid boxes calculating hundreds of variables each, on minute timescales . |
我们的模型里有成百上千的网格 每个网格在分钟级的时间尺度上计算成百个变量 |
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grid:n.网格;格子,栅格;输电网; variables:n.[数]变量; timescales:n.时标;时间量程(timescale的复数);
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| And it takes weeks to perform our integrations . |
我们花费数周的时间整合数据 |
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perform:v.表演;执行;履行;演出;工作,运转(好/不好); integrations:n.集成;综合;
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| And we perform dozens of integrations in order to understand what's happening. |
为了理解究竟发生了什么, 我们进行数十次的整合 |
| We also fly all over the world looking for this thing. |
同时,我们在世界各地搜寻这种物质 |
| I recently joined a field campaign in Malaysia. There are others. |
最近我在马来西亚参加了一个野外研究项目,别处也有类似的项目 |
| We found a global atmospheric watchtower there, in the middle of the rainforest , and hung hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of scientific equipment off this tower, to look for isoprene, and of course, other things while we were there. |
我们在当地雨林里建立了一个全球大气监视塔 我们在塔上悬挂了 价值数十万美元的科学设备 这是都是为了探测异戊二烯分子 当然,也可以探测别的存在的东西 |
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global:adj.全球的;总体的;球形的; watchtower:n.瞭望塔,岗楼; rainforest:n.(热带)雨林;
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| This is the tower in the middle of the rainforest, from above. |
这就是雨林中的那座塔,这是从上看 |
| And this is the tower from below. |
再从下方看看 |
| And on part of that field campaign we even brought an aircraft with us. |
在上次的野外考察中我们还动用了 |
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aircraft:n.飞机,航空器;
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| And this plane, the model, BA146, which was run by FAAM, normally flies 120 to 130 people. |
FAAM旗下的BA146型飞机 这种飞机通常客容量在120至130人之间 |
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normally:adv.正常地;通常地,一般地;
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| So maybe you took a similar aircraft to get here today. |
也许在座的各位今天就是搭乘类似的飞机到达会场的 |
| But we didn't just fly it. We were flying at 100 meters above the top of the canopy to measure this molecule -- incredibly dangerous stuff. |
但科学家的工作可不只是搭乘飞机这样简单。 为了测量这种分子飞机的飞行高度离森林中天棚似的树荫仅为100米--很危险 |
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canopy:n.天篷;华盖;遮篷;苍穹;vt.用天蓬遮盖;遮盖;
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| We had to fly at a special incline in order to make the measurements . |
为了进行测量,飞机要保持在一个特殊的飞行角度 |
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incline:v.(使)倾向于,有…的趋势;(使)倾斜;n.斜坡;倾斜;斜度; measurements:n.测量值,尺寸(measurement的复数);
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| We hire military and test pilots to do the maneuvering . |
为此我们请来军事和飞机试驾飞行员来驾驶飞机 |
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military:adj.军事的;军人的;适于战争的;n.军队;军人; maneuvering:v.使某物移动,运动;熟练而巧妙地引导;演习;(maneuver的现在分词)
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| We have to get special flight clearance . |
此外我们还准备了特殊飞行许可 |
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clearance:n.清除;空隙;
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| And as you come around the banks in these valleys, the forces can get up to two Gs. |
当飞机一路从河谷飞过,阻力就已高达2G |
| And the scientists have to be completely harnessed in in order to make measurements while they're on board. |
要进行测量 科学家们就一定要在机舱里进行控制 |
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harnessed:v.给(马等)上挽具;控制,利用(以产生能量等);(harness的过去式和过去分词)
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| So, as you can imagine, the inside of this aircraft doesn't look like any plane you would take on vacation. |
想象一下 我们的飞机机舱可不是普通飞机可以媲美的 |
| It's a flying laboratory that we took to make measurements in the region of this molecule. |
它是测量分子的空中实验室 |
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laboratory:n.实验室,研究室; region:n.地区;范围;部位;
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| We do all of this to understand the chemistry of one molecule. |
这是我们为了解化学分子所进行的努力 |
| And when one student like me has some sort of inclination or understanding about that molecule, they write one scientific paper on the subject. |
像我一样的学生们要是对某一分子情有独钟 或有独到见解 就会把自己的看法写成科学论文 |
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inclination:n.倾向;意愿;趋向;趋势;倾斜度;
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| And out of that field campaign we'll probably get a few dozen papers on a few dozen processes or molecules. |
然后对那几十种分子的研究就会积累 几十篇文章 |
| And as a body of knowledge builds up, it will form one subsection , or sub-subsection of an assessment like the IPCC, although we have others. |
这样知识体系就构建起来了 次级学科,或次次级学科就形成了 包括IPCC在内,我们有很多这样的研究 |
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subsection:n.分段,分部;细分;小部分; assessment:n.评定;估价;
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| And each one of the 11 chapters of the IPCC has six to ten subsections . |
IPCC的11个章节中 都有六至十个次级学科 |
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subsections:n.小节;细目;(炮兵)分队;(subsections是subsection的复数);
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| So you can imagine the scale of the effort. |
科学的努力付出可见一斑 |
| In each one of those assessments that we write, we always tag on a summary , and the summary is written for a non-scientific audience. |
我们的每一篇研究报告 都会有一个 为普通大众所写的摘要 |
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assessments:评价; tag:n.标记;标签;标志;标牌;v.给…加上标签;把…称作;给…起诨名; summary:adj.简易的;扼要的;n.概要,摘要,总结; non-scientific:非科学的;
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| And we hand that summary to journalists and policy makers, in order to make headlines like these. |
然后摘要就交给记者和政策制定者 新闻报道的标题就形成了 |
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journalists:n.新闻记者(journalist的复数); policy:n.政策,方针;保险单;
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| Thank you very much. |
非常感谢 |
| (Applause) |
（鼓掌） |