英语听力精选进阶版 13734

Thickening glaciers¹

Summary

17 April 2012

A team of scientists has shown that the glaciers in one of Asia's major mountain ranges are defying the general tendency towards shrinkage, and have in fact expanded slightly over the last few years. The range in question is the Karakoram, which straddles Pakistan, India and China on the north-western end of the Himalayas.

Reporter

Paddy Clark

Report

Glacial decline and the gradual loss of polar ice caps has been a worrying trend over recent decades, but scientists have been aware of an apparently² curious anomaly with the Karakoram, which contains some of the world's biggest mountains including the second highest, K2. It has about 20,000 square kilometres of glaciers, accounting³ for three percent of the total area of ice outside the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Now a team of French scientists has carried out a detailed⁴ survey over a large area of the range using sophisticated remote-sensing measurements. Writing in the scientific journal, Nature, they say they found that in the first years of this century the Karakoram's glaciers had actually expanded by a small amount, while in the neighbouring Himalayas they'd been shrinking.

It's unclear why this is happening, but it seems that by a quirk⁵ in the weather pattern that's not fully⁶ understood, less heat is being delivered to the Karakoram and the mountains are receiving heavier falls of snow.

1 glaciers   

冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
• It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

2 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

3 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

4 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

5 quirk   

n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动

参考例句：

• He had a strange quirk of addressing his wife as Mrs Smith.他很怪，把自己的妻子称作史密斯夫人。
• The most annoying quirk of his is wearing a cap all the time.他最令人感到厌恶的怪癖就是无论何时都戴著帽子。

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。