Lack of knowledge; lack of interest on concern; the most frightening situation that you can imagine; misfortunes; carelessness in standards of behaviour; extremely unlikely to happen; more or less; the ordinary people; polluted areas.
Explain the meaning of the following phrases.
Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant; spent nuclear fuel; environmental relief; to prove a mixed blessing; to have one’s own reasons to reconsider.
Comment on the title of the article summarizing the information of the article.
For discussion
- What are your impressions of the article? Do you find the examples the writer gives convincing?
- What is your stance on the problem raised? Do you consider it topical for Russia?
- What are the key arguments of the opponents and proponents of the legislation?
■ 3.6 C. Current Accounts of the Fate of the Planet
Steve Connor on a vast sea search for clues to climate
In their darker moments, climatologists talk about their own "nightmare scenario". This is one where global warming has brought about such significant climatic changes that ocean currents change direction. One scene from the nightmare has the Gulf Stream moving south or even going into reverse, making winter in London look and feel like a St Petersburg January.
The ocean is a great moderating influence on the planet, soaking up heat around the tropics and depositing it in the cooler polar regions. Yet scientists know surprisingly little about how the sea does this - they estimate that the North Atlantic alone moves energy equivalent to the output of several hundred million power stations.
Last year oceanographers began their biggest international research initiative to learn more about ocean circulation. The first results from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment demonstrate just how complex the movement of sea water can be. They have also given scientists a glimpse of the amount of heat being exchanged between the oceans and the atmosphere. As part of the experiment,- researchers are monitoring the speed and direction of ocean currents, water temperature and salinity.
Research ships taking part will gather detailed measurements at 24,000 points or "stations" along carefully designated trans-ocean routes. This undertaking dwarfs the 8,000 hydrographic stations created in the past hundred years of ocean surveying. A fleet of ships, buoys, seabed sensors and satellites will collect so much data that Britain, one of the 40 countries taking part, has opened a research institute, the James Rennell Centre for Ocean Circulation in Southampton, to process them.
One of the justifications for the experiment, says John Woods, director of marine and atmospheric sciences at the Natural Environment Research Council, is that the oceans hold the key to understanding long-term changes in the global climate. The Earth has two "envelopes" - the ocean, consisting of slowly circulating water, and the atmosphere, made of fast-moving air. Far from being independent, they interact, one modifying the other until a balance is reached between them. The present balance came about at the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. Scientists hope that knowing more about the ocean's "weather patterns" will help them to predict climate changes further ahead.
Knowing how heat is moved around the ocean is crucial to such long-term forecasting. The top three metres of the ocean store more heat than all of the atmosphere. Some of the heat can be transported downward between 30 metres and several thousand metres. The deeper it goes, the longer it stays out of the atmosphere. Water heated in the equatorial region flows in shallow currents north or south towards the poles, where it releases its heat to the air and, as it becomes colder and denser, sinks to the sea floor, where it forms deep, cold currents that flow back to the equator.
John Gould, one of the British scientists taking part in the ocean circulation experiment, is discovering just how this occurs in the North Atlantic. Shallow currents, less than 500m deep, of warm water at about 8°C flow from the Atlantic into the Norwegian Sea, mainly along a path that follows the point where the continental shelf ends and the deep mid-ocean valleys begin. Meanwhile, at depths down to 5,000m, deep currents of cold water at about minus 1 °C flow south into the Atlantic along the deep ocean valleys. (Salt water at this depth does not freeze at 0°C.)
Sensors positioned on the seabed have given Dr Gould and his researchers an accurate assessment of just how much cold water is flowing back into the North Atlantic having given up its heat to the atmosphere over north-west Europe. In total, he estimates, about 5 million cubic metres of water per second flows in these deep currents between Greenland and the British Isles. This means the warm water of the
North Atlantic must be giving up about 200 million megawatts of energy to the atmosphere over north-west Europe. '
Research at the other end of the world, in the seas around Antarctica, is also finding that sea-floor topography plays a crucial role in determining the direction of ocean currents. In the past, oceanographers have assumed, for instance, that surface currents such as the Gulf Stream do not extend much beyond a kilometre in depth. But an analysis of currents in Antarctic waters has shown that currents are not concentrated in the top kilometre, but reach down to the submerged mountain ranges.
Dr Woods believes such research will help to save lives. "More deaths can be prevented by ocean forecasting than by weather forecasting, and our economic and social well-being are more vulnerable to change in the ocean than in the atmosphere."
Vocabulary
reverse – to change sth, go backward: reverse out/into a car/bus; reverse the charges – call collect; reversible; reverse (n): quite the reverse (=completely the opposite); go into reverse (=happen in the opposite way); reverse order/procedure/process: in reversed order; the reverse side – the back of sth; reverse discrimination; reversion to – a return to a former, usually bad, condition.
moderate – to make something less extreme or violent; moderate (adj): a moderate smoker/ moderate wage demands; moderate (n); moderately (adv); moderation: in moderation; moderation in – reduction in force, degree, speed.
dwarf – to be so big that other things are made to seem very small; dwarf (n); dwarf (adj): a dwarf plant/animal –much smaller than the usual size.
modify – to make small changes to something in order to improve it; modification (n).
balance – a steady state: lose/keep your balance; balance in/between/of; strike a balance – (= manage to balance the opposing forces); on balance/ off balance; the balance of evidence/probability; be/hang in the balance (not to know what the results, outcome will be); tip/swing the balance (influence the result of); balance (n); (hold) the balance of power.
shallow – a short distance from the bottom to the surface: shallow river/ waters; not interested or showing any understanding in important matters; shallowness (n)
release – let sb free; stop holding; make public; release sb from – to allow someone not to do sth; release (n): on(general) release – if a film is on general release it has recently become possible to see or buy it.
1. Scan the text as quickly as possible to find where these ideas are mentioned. Read the article and decide whether the statements are true or false.
1. Deep ocean currents transfer heat from the equator to the polar regions.
2. Global warming has already caused significant changes to ocean currents.
3. A large number of countries are participating in a wide-scale research program.
4. Ocean currents are essential factors in the planetary heat transfer system.
5. International research is aimed at a better understanding of climatic changes.
6. More data will be collected in this research initiative than ever before.
7. Research has shown that the topography of the seabed does not influence the direction of currents.
8. British scientists will monitor wind speeds in the polar regions.
