美国国家公共电台 NPR Coastal Pacific Oxygen Levels Now Plummet Once A Year

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It's not every day that scientists announce a new season. But that's what ocean researchers just did on the west coast. They say waters off Oregon, Washington and California now have a whole season when the oxygen level on the sea floor drops so low, animals start to die. They call it hypoxia season. Kristian Foden-Vencil of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

KRISTIAN FODEN-VENCIL, BYLINE¹: In Newport Harbor, crab² fisherman David Bailey pumps water out of his boat. It's melted ice he needs to replace to keep his catch fresh. He says news of a regular hypoxia season has him rattled³. He experienced one a decade ago.

DAVID BAILEY: If there's crabs⁴ in the pot, they're dead, straight up. And this will have happened after the time before - everything was fine. And it shows up like a flip⁵ of a switch. If you rebait them, when you go out the next time, they're blanks. They're absolutely empty. The crabs have left the area.

FODEN-VENCIL: Fishermen had little notion of hypoxic waters 16 years ago, but they were starting to report the effects. That's when Francis Chan had just finished his Ph.D. and was looking for a research subject.

FRANCIS CHAN: I got a call from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, a biologist there who - he was fielding calls from the fishing industry from crabbers who said, you know, hey. The crabs in my pots are dead.

FODEN-VENCIL: The biologist told him animals that are normally content on the ocean floor were doing strange things.

CHAN: There's octopus⁶ - he saw an octopus climbing up the rope, just kind of odd things that fishermen had not seen before. What's happening? What's the problem?

FODEN-VENCIL: He didn't know, but it was a lack of oxygen or hypoxia. It's when ocean water close to the sea floor has such low levels of dissolved oxygen that critters down there, like crabs, sea cucumbers and sea stars, die.

Now there's a hypoxia season that hits the west coast every summer and can last from a couple of days to a few months. It can cover a few square miles or thousands of square miles. And there's even video of it near reefs with dead creatures littering the sea floor. Chan, who is now co-chair of a California hypoxia task force, says the question is, why? Why is this happening?

CHAN: One of the more fundamental reasons is that the ocean is warmer now. And warmer water holds less oxygen. And then the second part is that a warmer surface ocean, it acts as an insulating blanket.

FODEN-VENCIL: Scientists say climate change is behind this. The oceans have been absorbing nearly all the rising heat from greenhouse gas emissions⁷ and is projected to grow even warmer in coming decades. Oregon State University oceanographer Jack⁸ Barth thinks the higher temperatures are also slowing ocean currents and that if we could see under the waves, there'd be more concern.

JACK BARTH: As an analogy, think about this summer when the skies were filled with smoke - covered the whole Pacific Northwest, right? That's a huge area. When we used to think about hypoxia in the ocean, we'd think about little areas. But now what we're looking at is that out in the ocean, there's low oxygen all along the coast.

FODEN-VENCIL: David Bailey's been crabbing⁹ for 40 years. And he says when hypoxic waters showed up, it cost him a thousand dollars or more in lost time and diesel¹⁰ spent sailing around pulling up empty crab pots.

BAILEY: It's a little scary. You know, I've been fishing that many years. The last time I remember it - 10 to 12 years ago - it came up once. And I'd never seen it before. And now there's a season. Something - to me, something's off.

FODEN-VENCIL: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric¹¹ Administration just issued a grant for about 40 new oxygen sensors¹² to be distributed among crabbers here so they can gather data with their pots. Crabbers say they're happy to hand over the data. But they're not so sure about giving locations. After all, favorite crabbing spots are closely guarded secrets. For NPR News, I'm Kristian Foden-Vencil in Newport, Ore.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIOHEAD SONG, "WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI")

1 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。

2 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

3 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

4 crabs   

n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• As we walked along the seashore we saw lots of tiny crabs. 我们在海岸上散步时看到很多小蟹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fish and crabs scavenge for decaying tissue. 鱼和蟹搜寻腐烂的组织为食。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

6 octopus   

n.章鱼

参考例句：

• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。
• One octopus has eight tentacles.一条章鱼有八根触角。

7 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

8 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

9 crabbing   

v.捕蟹( crab的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• We ought not to begin by crabbing everything. 我们不应当一开始就对一切事情采取吹毛求疵的态度。 来自辞典例句
• The boss is always crabbing about my work. 老板对我的工作总是横挑鼻子竖挑眼。 来自辞典例句

10 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

11 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

12 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