2017年职称英语模拟题-2017年中石油职称英语新版选读文章系列(48)

Ocean Plant Life in Decline海洋植物数量锐减

　　1.Scientists have discovered plant life covering the surface of the world's oceans is disappearing at a dangerous rate. This plant life called phytoplankton is a vital resource that helps absorb the worst of the "greenhouse gases" involved in global warming. Satellites and ships at sea have confirmed the diminishing productivity of the microscopic plants, which oceanographers say is most striking in the waters of the North Pacific—ranging as far up as the high Arctic. "Whether the lost productivity of the phytoplankton is directly due to increased ocean temperatures that have been recorded for at least the past 20 years remains part of an extremely complex puzzle", says Watson W. Gregg, a NASA biologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in the USA, but it surely offers a fresh clue to the controversy over climate change. According to Gregg, the greatest loss of phytoplankton has occurred where ocean temperatures have risen most significantly between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. In the North Atlantic summertime, sea surface temperatures rose about 1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, while in the North Pacific the ocean's surface temperatures rose about 0.07 of a degree.

　　1、科学家们发现覆盖海洋表面的植物数量正在快速消失。这种被称为“浮游植物”的生物能够吸收导致全球变暖的危害的“温室气体”。卫星和海上船舶确认了这种细微生物正在减少。海洋研究者认为这种生物在北太平洋里的消亡速度最快，甚至扩展到了北极圈。“浮游植物的减少是否是过去的20 年间海洋温度的升高直接导致的，这依然是一个未解之迷。”在美国的Goddard空间飞行中心的NASA生物学家Watson W.Gregg如是说。但他表示，这确实提供了一个解决气候变化争议的全新线索。Gregg认为，从80年代初到90年代末，海洋温度明显升高的地方往往是浮游植物大量减少的地方。在北大西洋的夏季，海洋的表面温度在那段时间里升高了1.3华氏度，在北太平洋海洋表面，温度升髙了0.07度。

　　2.While the link between ocean temperatures and the productivity of plankton is striking, other factors can also affect the health of the plants. They need iron as nourishment, for example, and much of it reaches them in powerful winds that sweep iron-containing dust across the oceans from continental deserts. When those winds diminish or fail, plankton can suffer. According to Gregg and his colleagues, there have been small but measurable decreases in the amount of iron deposited over the oceans in recent years.

　　2、虽然海洋温度的升高和浮游植物数量之间的关系密不可分，但是其他 因素也会影响这种海洋植物的健康。比如说它们需要铁来当做养料，这种养 料来自于大陆上含铁的沙尘。大风把这些沙尘吹向海洋，当这些风减弱或者 消亡，浮游植物的生存就会面临危胁。Gregg和他的同事认为，近年来海洋中 的铁含量有所下降，尽管幅度较小，但是已经能够通过仪器测量出来。

　　3.The significant decline in plankton productivity has a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle. Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the Carbon dioxide in the world's environment because they use the carbon, along with sunlight, for growth, and release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. Primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic, Gregg and his colleagues determined from their satellite observations and shipboard surveys. Studies combining all the major ocean basins of the world have revealed the decline in plankton productivity to be more than 6 percent.

　　3、浮游植物数量明显减少对全球碳循环有着直接的影响。通常，这种海洋植物吸收了全球大约一半的二氧化碳，因为它们借助二氧化碳以及阳光来生长，并把氧气释放到大气中，这就是我们熟知的光合作用。浮游植物的主要生长区域是北太平洋，那里的浮游植物数量在过去的20年里降低了9%以上，在北大西洋降低了约7%,这是Gregg和他的同事利用卫星观察和船舶测量得出的结论。对世界上主要海洋盆地的研究表明，浮游植物的数量下降了6%以上。

　　4.The ocean plankton is a major way in which the extra carbon dioxide emitted in the combustion of fossil fuels is eliminated. Whether caused by currently rising global temperatures or not, the loss of natural plankton productivity in the oceans also means the loss of an important factor in removing much of the principal greenhouse gas that has caused the world's climate to warm for the past century or more. "Our combined research shows that ocean primary productivity is declining, and it may be the result of climate changes such as increased temperatures and decreased iron deposits into parts of the oceans. This has major implications for the global carbon cycle" said Gregg.

　　4、海洋浮游植物是吸收燃烧化石燃料而排放出的二氧化碳的主要功臣。 无论是否是由于当今气候变暖造成，海洋浮游植物的减少意味着一个消除温室气体的重要元素的消失，而温室气体已经使得全球气温在过去一百多年中不断升高。Gregg说：“研究表明，海洋浮游植物数量持续下降，这有可能是气候变化的结果，包括温度上升以及海洋中铁含量下降。这对全球碳循环会有重大影响”。

　　5.At the same time, Stanford University scientists using two other NASA satellites and one flown by the Defense Department have observed dramatic new changes in the vast ice sheets along the west coast of Antarctica. These changes, in turn, are having a major impact on phytoplankton there. They report that a monster chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf—an iceberg almost 20 miles wide and 124 miles long—has broken off the west face of the shelf and is burying a vast ocean area of phytoplankton that is the base of the food web in an area exceptionally rich in plant and animal marine life.

　　5、与此同时，斯坦福大学的科学家们使用了另外两个NASA卫星，其中一个是由国防部发射的。他们观察到了南极洲西海岸巨大冰层发生的重大变化，这些变化正对那里的浮游植物产生严重影响。他们发现，“罗斯陆缘冰”中的大冰山——一座大约有20英里宽、124英里长的冰山——己经从西海岸冰层上脱离，覆盖了一个有浮游植物生存的巨大海洋区域。这些浮游植物是食物链的基础，特别是在海洋动物和植物特别丰富的地方。

　　6.Although sea surface temperatures around Western Antarctica are remaining stable, the loss of plankton is proving catastrophic to all the higher life forms that depend on the plant masses, say Stanford biological oceanographers Arrigo and Van Dijken. Icebergs in Antarctica are designated by letters and numbers for aerial surveys across millions of square miles of the southern ocean, and this berg is known as C-19. "We estimate from satellite observations that C-19 in the Ross Sea has covered 90 percent of all the phytoplankton there" said Arrigo.

　　6、斯坦福大学的生物学家Arrigo和Van Dijken认为，尽管南极洲西部海洋表面的温度保持了稳定，但是浮游植物的减少对所有依赖这些植物的高等生物群会产生毁灭性影响。整个南极洲的海洋面积达几百万平方英里，为了便于开展空中测量，科学家们按照字母和数字的顺序分类排列南极洲的冰山， 因此上述的这块大冰山被命名为C-19。Arrigo说：“根据卫星观测,数据，我们估计在罗斯海中的C-19已经覆盖了那里90%的浮游植物。”

　　7.Huge as it is, the C-19 iceberg is only the second-largest recorded in the Ross Sea region. An even larger one, dubbed B-15, broke off, or "calved" in 2001. Although it also blotted out a large area of floating phytoplankton on the sea surface, it only wiped out about 40 percent of the microscopic plants. Approximately 25 percent of the world's populations of emperor penguins and 30 percent of the Adelie penguins nest in colonies in this area. This amounts to hundreds of thousands of Adelie and emperor penguins all endangered by the huge iceberg, which has been stuck against the coast ever since it broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf last year. Whales, seals and the millions of shrimplike sea creatures called krill are also threatened by the loss of many square miles of phytoplankton.

　　7、尽管C-19非常庞大，它只是罗斯海区域中有记录以来位列第二的冰 山。更大的那座叫B—15，于2001年分裂，或者说被给予了新生。尽管它占 据了海洋表面浮游植物的一大块面积，不过只是毁灭了 40%的微生植物群。 世界上大约25%的帝企鹅和30%的阿德烈企鹅在这个海域群体筑巢。这些数以十万计的阿德烈企鹅和帝企鹅都会因这个庞大的冰山而面临灭绝的危险。 这个冰山自从去年从“罗斯陆缘冰”上脱离以来一直被卡在海岸线上。鲸鱼、海豹，还有数百万只磷虾都将因为海洋浮游植物的锐减而面临烕胁。

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