A Sea of Troubles 海洋的阅读文章VIP

A Sea of TroublesMan is attacking the oceans. They will beat him if he does not take care.NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like moving yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is comforting.The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the sea water. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. Worse, you may disturb entire ecosystem.That is also what acidification does to coral reefs, especially if they are already suffering from too much fishing, too much heating or pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades. That would be the end of the rainforests of the seas.Carbon dioxide affects the sea in other ways, too, notably through global warming. The oceans expand as they warm up. They are also enlarged by melting glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets: Greenlands ice is on track to melt completely, which will eventually raise the sea level by about seven meters (23ft). Even by the end of this century, the level may well have risen by 80cm, perhaps by much more. For the 630m people who live within 10km (six miles) of the sea, this is serious. Countries like Bangladesh, with 150 million inhabitants, will be inundated. Even people living far inland may be affected by the warming: droughts in the western United States seem to be caused by changing surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.And then there are the red tides of algal blooms, and the dead zones where only simple organisms thrive. All of these are increasing in intensity, frequency and extent. All of these, too, seem to be associated with various stresses man inflicts on marine ecosystems: overfishing, global warming, fertilizers running from land into rivers.Some of the worrying changes may not be entirely the work of man. But one that surely has no other cause is the lack of fish in the sea: most of the big ones have now been hauled out and the rest will be gone within decades if the pillage continues at current rates. Indeed, over three-quarters of all marine fish species are below, or on the brink of falling below, sustainable levels. Another change is the appearance of a mass of discarded plastic that swirls round in two clots in the Pacific, each as large as the United States. And the sea has plenty of other ills, as our special report this week explains.Each of these changes is a disaster. Together they make for something much worse. Moreover, they are happening alarmingly fastin decades, rather than the millions of years needed for fish and plants to adapt. Many are irreversible. It will take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to its pre-industrial state of 200 years ago, says Britains most outstanding body of scientists, the Royal Society. Many also fear that some changes are reaching limits after which further changes may speed up uncontrollably. No one fully understands why the cod have not returned to the Grand Banks off Canada, even after 16 years of no fishing. No one quite knows why glaciers and ice shelves are melting so fast, or how a lake on the Greenland ice sheet covering six square kilometers could drain away in 24 hours, as it did in 2006. Such unexpected events make scientists nervous.What can be done to put matters right? The sea, the last part of the world where man acts as a hunter-gathereras well as bather, miner, dumper and general polluterneeds management, just as the land does. Economics demands it as much as environmentalism, for the world squanders money through its poor management of the oceans. Bad management and overfishing waste $50 billion a year, says the World Bank.Economics also provides some answers. For a start, fishing subsidies should be abolished in an industry characterized by overcapacity and inefficiency. Then governments need to look at ways of giving those who exploit the resources of the sea an interest in their conservation. One such is the system of individual transferable fishing quotas that have been shown to work in Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and the western United States. Similar rights could be given to nitrogen polluters, as they have been to carbon polluters in Europe, and to seabed miners on continental shelves. A system of options and futures trading for fish could also help.Notes:yo-yon. 悠悠球carbon dioxiden. 二氧化碳acidicadj. 酸的calcium-carbonaten. 碳酸钙ecosystemn. 生态系统 acidificationn. 酸化作用coral reefn. 珊瑚礁transferableadj. 可转让的droughtn. 干旱inlandn. 内陆algal bloomn. 藻类水华codn. 鳕鱼irreversibleadj. 不可逆转的glaciern. 冰川the Grand Banksn. 大浅滩environmentalismn. 环保主义ice shelfn. 冰架subsidyn. 补贴 nitrogenn. 氮Reading Comprehension1. What causes the sea to become more acidic according to the passage,?2. What kind of phenomenon can carbon dioxide bring about to the sea?3. Do you agree with the authors suggestion to protect the sea?参考译文：人类行为正伤害着海洋，如果不加检点，将受到海洋的惩罚。据说人们对海洋所知不多，对火星表面倒绘制了不少的地图。但是人们已经在海底打了两千个洞，拍了十万张照片，用卫星监视着五大洋，并在各处设置了装备有仪器的像不停的悠悠球一样上下起伏的漂浮物。人们对海洋情况的掌握其实是很多的，但很少有令人心安的。令人担忧的是海洋表面，那里的空气近来充满着人为造成的二氧化碳，并与海水相互作用，因而使海水的酸度变得更大，使得具有碳酸钙外壳或骨架的海洋生物，即便不是不能生存，也是生存困难。更糟的是，可能使整个生态系统变得失去平衡。令人担忧的还有导致珊瑚礁产生酸化作用物质，尤其是已经遭受过度捕捞、升温过高或污染的珊瑚礁。很多或大部分珊瑚礁因而受到严重损害。有四分之一的海洋生物以珊瑚礁为家，一些科学家认为，珊瑚礁实际上可能会在几十年内消失。这个令人担忧的事将是珊瑚礁这一海洋雨林毁灭的原因。二氧化碳也在其他方面对海洋产生影响，最明显的就是通过导致全球变暖。当海洋变暖时，它的体积就会膨胀。海洋也会因冰川、冰盖和冰盾的融化而膨胀：格陵兰岛的冰正在处于完全融化的进程中，这将最终使海平面升高大约七米（23英尺）。甚至到本世纪末，海平面完全有可能升高80厘米，也许会更高。在距海岸线10公里（六英里）以内，居住着六亿三千万人，这是很严重的。像孟加拉国（有一亿五千万人口）这样的国家，将会被淹没。即使居住于深远的内陆的人们，也可能被全球升温所影响：美国西部的干旱，可能就是由热带太平洋的表面温度变化导致的。全球变暖的这种影响会导致出现藻花水华的赤潮以及仅有简单生物体繁殖的死亡区域，所有这些在强度、频度和范围上都在不断增加着，而且似乎也与人类施加给海洋生态系统的各种压力有关联：过度捕捞、全球变暖、由陆地流入河流的化肥。有些令人担忧的变化可能不是人为因素的结果，但是有一个变化确实是人为的，并没有其他原因，就是海洋里鱼类的食物短缺：大鱼大部分已被捕捞，如果掠夺以现在的速度进行下去，剩下的部分也将在几十年内被捞光。的确，超过四分之三的海洋鱼种数量正降到可承受的水平边缘或之下。另一个人为的变化是大量被丢弃的塑料，它们以两大团在太平洋里盘旋，每一个都有美国那么大。海洋还有很多其它问题，如我们这周的特别报到说明的。这些变化的每一个都是灾难性的，它们结合在一起会导致更大的恶果。此外，它们发生的速度是令人吃惊的将是在几十年内，而不是动植物适应自然需要的几十亿年。很多变化是不可逆转的。对海洋化学来说，恢复到类似二百年前工业化前的状态，将需要数万年的时间，这是英国最杰出的科学家团体皇家学会认为的。很多人担心，某些变化正在接近引起进一步的不可控的加速变化的节点。没有人理解，为什么即使在停止捕鱼十六年后，鳕鱼仍没有返回加拿大大浅滩。没有人明白为什么冰川和冰架正如此快地在融化，或者方圆六平方公里的格陵兰岛冰盾上的湖怎么会在二十小时内枯竭，这是发生在年的事情。如此出乎意料之事使科学家们神经紧张。人类可以做些什么工作，以使这些情况恢复正常呢？海洋需要管理，正如陆地需要管理一样，海洋是世界上人类采集捕猎、沐浴、采矿、倾倒