雅思真题听力原文

Cambridge IELTS 14

Test 2 Section 4

The History of Weather Forecasting

In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I’ll start by examining its early history. That’ll be the subject of today’s talk.
Okay, so we’ll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods. And weather catastrohpes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths.
Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows. For instance, there’s the Egyption sun god Ra and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning.
Many ancient civilizations developed rites such as dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.
But the weather was of daily importance. Observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusion from these observations was really important. In fact, their survival depended on it.
It isn’t know when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 B.C., the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena.
The Chinese also recognized weather patterns, and by 300 B.C., astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.
The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. is especially noteworthy as he ideas held sway for nearly 2000 years。In 340 B.C. he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms. He also described celestial phenomenona such as halos, that is, bright circules of light around the sun, the moon bright starts and comets.
Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the earch. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.
For nearly 2000 years, Aristotle’s work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory. Alongside this, though in the middle ages weather observations were passed on in the form of proverbs, such as red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.
Many of these are based on very good observations and are accurate, as contemporary meteorologists have discovered. For centuries, any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observations.
But In the 15th century,scientists began to see the need for instruments. Until then, the only ones available were weather vanes, to determine the wind direction, and early versions of rain gauges.
One of the first, invented in the 15th century, was a hygrometer, which measured humidity. This was one of the many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting. In 1592, the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world’s first thermometer. His student Torricelli later invented the barometer, which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure.
In 1648, the French philosohper Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude. This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 1686.
And Halley was also the first person to map trade winds, This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its processes better, and they started collecting weather observation data systemtically.
In the 18th century, the scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular. But he was very interested in weather and studied it throughout most of his life. It was Franklin, who discovered that storms generally travel from west to east.
In addition to new meteorological instruments other developments contributed to understanding atmosphere.
People in different locations began to keep recodes, and in the mid 19th century, the invention of telegraph made it possible for these recodes to be collected.
It was not until the early 20th century, the mathematics and pyhsics became part of meterology。And we will continue from that point next week.

在这一系列关于天气预报历史的讲座中，我将首先探讨其早期历史。这将是今天讲座的主题。
好，我们先把时间追溯到几千年前。大多数古代文明都有自己的天气之神。而洪水等天气灾害，在许多关于世界起源的神话中都扮演着重要的角色。
总的来说，人们认为天气变化取决于众神的喜怒无常，而不同文化中种类繁多的天气神也正说明了这一点。例如，有埃及的太阳神拉（Ra），还有北欧神话中掌管雷电的神托尔（Thor）。
许多古代文明还发展出了各种仪式，比如祭祀舞蹈，希望天气之神能够眷顾他们。
然而，天气对于人们的日常生活至关重要。观察天空，并根据这些观察作出正确的判断，是一件极其重要的事情。事实上，他们的生存就依赖于这一点。
目前尚不清楚人类最早是在什么时候开始观测天空的。但大约在公元前650年，巴比伦人根据对云层和其他自然现象的观察，制作出了世界上最早的短期天气预报。
中国人同样也认识到了天气变化的规律。到了公元前300年，天文学家已经制定出一种历法，将一年划分为二十四个节气，每一个节气都对应着一种不同的天气现象。
古希腊人则是最早采用更加科学的方法来解释天气现象的文明。公元前4世纪哲学家和科学家亚里士多德的作品特别值得关注，因为他的思想主导了近2000年。公元前340年，他写了一本书，在书中他试图解释雨、云、风和风暴的形成。他还描述了天文现象，例如光晕，即太阳、月亮和明亮星星周围的光圈，以及彗星。他的许多观测结果都惊人地准确。例如，他认为热量能使水蒸发。但是他也得出了不少错误的结论，比如说风是地球呼出的气。这些错误在文艺复兴之后被纠正了。
近两千年以来，亚里士多德的著作一直被视为天气理论的权威。然而，与此同时，中世纪时期天气观测结果通过谚语的形式流传下来。比如，朝霞红牧羊人喜，晚霞红牧羊人忧。正如现代气象学家已经发现的那样，很多这样的谚语都基于非常好的观察，并且是准确的。几个世纪以来，任何对天气的预测都只能基于个人观测。
但在15世纪，科学家们开始意识到仪器的必要性。在那之前，唯一可用的仪器是风向标，用来确定风向, 以及早期版本的雨量计。
最早的仪器之一, 是在15世纪发明的湿度计，用来测量湿度。这是众多有助于天气预报发展的仪器之一。在1592，意大利科学家兼发明家伽利略，发明了世界上第一支温度计。他的学生托里拆利后来发明了气压计，使人们能够测量大气压强。
在1648年，法国哲学家帕斯卡证明了气压随海拔升高而降低。这一发现，在1686年被英国天文学家哈雷证实。而且哈雷也是绘制信风图的第一人。这种日益增强的测量与天气相关因素的能力，帮助科学家更好地理解天气及其过程，并且他们开始系统地收集天气观测数据。
18世纪，科学家兼政治家本杰明·富兰克林开展了关于电学、尤其是闪电的研究工作。但是他对天气也很感兴趣，并且他一生中的大部分时间都在研究它。
也正是富兰克林，发现了风暴通常自西向东移动。
除了新的气象仪器外，其他方面的进展也促进了我们对大气层的理解。
不同地区的人们开始记录，中世纪19世纪电报的发明让这些记录得以汇聚。
直到20世纪初，数学和物理学才成为气象学的一部分。下周哦我们将从那个时间点继续。

Test 1 section 4

The uses of energy the power of the sea.

Producting enough energy to meet out needs has became a serious problem. Demand is rising rapidly, because of the world’s increasing population and expanding industry.

Burning fossil fuels, like gas, coal and oil, seriously damages the environment and they’ll eventually run out. For a number of years now, scientists have been working out how we can derive energy from renewable sources, such as the sun and wind, without causing pollution.

Today I’ll outline marine renewable energy - also called ocean energy which harnesses the movement of the oceans. Marine renewable energy can be divide into the three main categories: wave energy, tidal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion, and I’ll say a few words about each one.

First wave energy. Numerous devices have been invented to harvest wave energy, with names such as Wave Dragon, the Penguin and Mighty Whale, and reasech is going on to try and come up with a really efficient method. This form of energy has plenty of potential, as the source is constant, and there’s on danger of waves coming to a standstill.

Electricity can be generated using onshore systems, using a reservoir, or offshore systems.

But the problem with ocean weaves is that they’re erratic, with the wind making them travel in every direction.
This adds to the difficulty of creating efficient technology: ideally all the waves would traval smoothly and regularly along the same straight line.

Another drawback is that sand and other sediment on the ocean floor might be stopped from flowing normally, which can lead to environmental problems.

The second category of marine energy that I’ll mantion is tidal energy

生产足够的能量来满足我们的需求已经变成了一个严重的问题。由于世界人口不断增长和工业持续扩张，需求正在迅速上升。

燃烧天然气、煤炭和石油等化石燃料会严重破坏环境，而且它们最终会耗尽。
近些年来，科学家们一直在研究如何从太阳能和风能等可再生能源中获取能量，同时不造成污染。

今天我讲概述海洋可再生能源 – 也称为海洋能 – 它利用海洋的运动来产生能量。海洋可再生能源可分为三大类：波浪能、朝夕能和海洋能和海洋能转换，我将对每一类分别简要介绍。

首先是波浪能。人们已经发明了无数种装置来捕获波浪能，他们有着诸如“波浪龙”、“企鹅” 和“巨鲸”之类的名称，而且相关研究仍在继续，试图找到一种真正高效的方法。这种能源形式潜力巨大，因为来源稳定，而且不存在波浪停息(完全静止)的风险。

电力可以通过陆上系统、利用水库（蓄水）或海上系统来发电。

但海浪的问题在于它是反复无常的，风会让它像四面八方涌动。
这增加了开发高效技术的难度：理想状态下，所有海浪本应沿着同一条直线平稳而有规律地行进。
另一个缺点是，海底的沙子和其他沉淀物可能会无法正常流动，这会导致环境问题。

我要提到的第二类海洋能源是潮汐能。