美国国家公共电台 NPR--Canada's Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa is closed because of a lack of ice

Canada's Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa is closed because of a lack of ice

Transcript¹

Ottawa's beloved skating canal has failed to ice over properly for the first time in its history. Scientists are trying to figure out how to sustain the tradition as global temperatures rise.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The canal running through the Canadian capital of Ottawa had welcomed skaters for more than 50 years. But this year, for the first time, the commission that manages the world's longest skating rink announced it won't open. As Emma Jacobs reports, scientists are trying to figure out how to sustain a beloved tradition as global temperatures rise.

EMMA JACOBS, BYLINE²: For the past three decades, Laura Urrechaga has woken up on winter nights to the sound of workers preparing the Rideau Canal for skating.

LAURA URRECHAGA: Three in the morning - 'cause I live a few houses down that way. And if I look out my window, I can see them clearing off the surface, flooding the surface.

JACOBS: As an avid³ skater, she doesn't mind it.

URRECHAGA: On really, really good days, it's just beautiful. It's so smooth.

JACOBS: But this year, the five-mile stretch has been mostly quiet. It never got solid enough to safely support the thousands of people who normally converge⁴ here on weekends. Temperatures fluctuated above and below freezing.

SHAWN KENNY: That causes a lot of problems structurally⁵ for the ice in terms of its ability to carry load or weight - both people skating on the canal, but also the equipment.

JACOBS: Ice researcher Shawn Kenny meets me near one of the wooden staircases down to the ice, roped off now, to visit a set of sensors⁶ he has embedded⁷ in the canal.

KENNY: It's down past this series of huts here.

JACOBS: Those are shuttered concession⁸ stands for skaters. Kenny's heading a team of engineers and scientists researching ways to maintain stronger ice. They're advising the commission that manages the skateway (ph). He stops where a combination of instruments that looks a little like a rooftop TV antenna⁹ stick up out of the canal.

KENNY: And so we can measure temperature in the snow cover, in the ice cover and the water column.

JACOBS: Kenny, who would regularly skate to his office at Carleton University, had noticed skate season change since his first winter in Ottawa in the '80s. It's lost an average of four days per decade, mostly from the start of the season as ice takes longer to form.

NATHAN GILLETT: The coldest temperatures are actually warming more quickly than the warmest temperatures.

JACOBS: Environment Canada spokesman Nathan Gillett says temperatures in Canada are warming faster than the global average, and they're changing unevenly¹⁰.

GILLETT: We're seeing warming in all seasons of the year. The warming is strongest in winter.

JACOBS: In Ottawa, the research group is piloting a number of possible responses. In December, they tested a slush cannon¹¹ to encourage early ice formation. For next winter, Kenny's team is 3D-printing, a remote-controlled snow-clearing robot. It can go out on thin, early ice to clear snow, which otherwise acts like an insulating blanket on the ice.

KENNY: From that, we can then think, OK, if we have 10 of these, we could clear X amount in so much time, given a certain snowfall event. Is that scalable or feasible at one, two, five kilometer lengths of the Rideau Canal?

JACOBS: They will also look at thermosiphons, underground heat redistributors. They're used up north to protect structures resting on thawing¹² permafrost. All these strategies will likely only work in the medium term. By the 2050s, Ottawa winters could get five weeks shorter. How much so depends on how the world does at addressing climate change. He hopes some of these strategies could be feasible for a while because he, like others, misses being out on the ice.

KENNY: When you look at it here and there's - you know, it should be a skating season and there's nobody on the ice. It's - yeah, it's strange.

JACOBS: And strange not to be out there himself, skating to work.

For NPR News, I'm Emma Jacobs in Ottawa.

(SOUNDBITE OF SATOSHI NAKAMOTO SONG, "LAST SONG EVER")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 avid   

adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的

参考例句：

• He is rich,but he is still avid of more money.他很富有,但他还想贪图更多的钱。
• She was avid for praise from her coach.那女孩渴望得到教练的称赞。

4 converge   

vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近

参考例句：

• The results converge towards this truth.其结果趋近于这个真理。
• Parallel lines converge at infinity.平行线永不相交。

5 structurally   

在结构上

参考例句：

• The house roof was (structurally) unsound. 这屋顶（结构）不牢固。
• Pinhole on shot-hole damage is never structurally significant. 针孔和蛀洞所造成的危害对结构的影响不大。

6 sensors   

n.传感器，灵敏元件( sensor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were more than 2000 sensors here. 这里装有两千多个灵敏元件。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Significant changes have been noted where sensors were exposed to trichloride. 当传感器暴露在三氯化物中时，有很大变化。 来自辞典例句

7 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

8 concession   

n.让步，妥协；特许(权)

参考例句：

• We can not make heavy concession to the matter.我们在这个问题上不能过于让步。
• That is a great concession.这是很大的让步。

9 antenna   

n.触角，触须；天线

参考例句：

• The workman fixed the antenna to the roof of the house.工人把天线固定在房顶上。
• In our village, there is an antenna on every roof for receiving TV signals.在我们村里，每家房顶上都有天线接收电视信号。

10 unevenly   

adv.不均匀的

参考例句：

• Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed. 燃料资源分布很不均匀。
• The cloth is dyed unevenly. 布染花了。

11 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

12 thawing   

n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化

参考例句：

• The ice is thawing. 冰在融化。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy. 天一直在下雪，雪又一直在融化，街上泥泞不堪。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹