VOA标准英语2009-Oceans's Ability to Mop-Up Greenhouse Gas De

By Jessica Berman
Washington
19 November 2009

 
A new study has found that oceans are struggling to help regulate climate as more carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, is pumped into the atmosphere. 

The ocean absorbs more than one-quarter of all of the man-made carbon dioxide from cars, coal-fired plant emissions¹ and clear-cutting of forests.

But a new study has found that with each passing year, the ocean is mopping up a smaller fraction of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.

According to the study, the world's oceans last year took up a record 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. But with the rapid growth in CO2 emissions, the authors say the amount of man-made CO2 absorbed by the ocean since 2000 may have declined by as much as 10 percent over previous years.

Samar Khatiwala is an oceanographer at Columbia University in New York and lead author of the study that found a growing imbalance between the amount of man-made carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere and what the oceans, called carbon sinks, are able to handle.

"What these results are showing is that the ocean is a really sizeable sink, as we call it, of man-made CO2. Unfortunately what our results are also suggesting is that the ocean may be becoming a less efficient sink of this carbon," he said.

 
Smog covers downtown Los Angeles (File)
The study looks at the amount of man-made carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean each year from the beginning of the Industrial Age in 1765 until now.
Researchers developed a mathematical technique to look at the amount of CO2 mopped up by the ocean that included factors such as seawater temperatures and ocean salinity².

Khatiwala says that until the beginning of this decade, there was a balance between carbon emissions and the amount of CO2 it could absorb. 
But he said the ocean has become more acidic as a result of its carbon stores, making it less able to cleanse³ the atmosphere of increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

"If emissions started growing too rapidly, the ocean basically cannot keep up. And in fact, that seems to have happened over the last 10 years," he explained. "If you compare emissions in this decade versus⁴ the previous decade, it was something like three times higher between 2000 and 2005 compared to the previous decade. So it's really not surprising that the ocean is having a hard time keeping up," he added.

Other climate models have predicted a slow-down in the percentage of carbon dioxide emissions soaked up by ocean, but Khatiwala and colleagues are the first to measure the amount of reduction.

Their fiding was published in an article this week in the journal Nature.

1 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。

2 salinity   

n.盐分；咸度；盐浓度；咸性

参考例句：

• In the sea water sampled the salinity is two parts per thousand.在取样的海水中，盐度为千分之二。
• In many sedimentary basins the salinity of the formation water increases with depth or compaction.在许多沉积盆地中，地层水的含盐量随深度或压实作用而增高。

3 cleanse   

vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗

参考例句：

• Health experts are trying to cleanse the air in cities. 卫生专家们正设法净化城市里的空气。
• Fresh fruit juices can also cleanse your body and reduce dark circles.新鲜果汁同样可以清洁你的身体,并对黑眼圈同样有抑制作用。

4 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。