Typhoons, El Nino and La Nina



一个热情似火 , 一个冷艳若冰, "厄尔尼诺"和"拉尼娜"的出现, 使人类已被搅乱的生活更加充满了异常的风雨. 台风就是这两种现象导致的一种自然灾害.

Typhoon "Haitang" has swept through Taiwan, causing damage and casualties. Every year about 79 typhoons occur worldwide, of which the majority and the strongest occur in the Northwest Pacific and Southern China Sea. Typhoons are a natural phenomenon, but what exactly is a typhoon, what causes them, and how do they affect our lives?

A typhoon is a large and powerful tropical cyclone, a low pressure area rotating counter-clockwise and containing rising warm air that forms over warm water in the western Pacific Ocean. Less powerful tropical cyclones are called Tropical Depressions and Tropical Storms. A typhoon is called a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, and a cyclone in the Indian Ocean.Typhoons can inflict terrible damage through thunderstorms, violent winds and torrential rain, which can cause flooding and landslides. They are also often accompanied by huge waves and extremely high tides associated with tidal surges. Typhoons can also cause flooding in coastal areas. When there is a typhoon, atmospheric pressure is low. The sea level rises and affects the volume of water flowing from rivers into the ocean. This indirectly leads to flooding. The exact causes of a typhoon are very complex, and so far scientists have not come to any unanimous conclusions. However, the La Nina and El Nino phenomena are closely linked with the formation of typhoons.

What exactly are "El Nino" and "La Nina," and how do they affect the global climate and our lives?



"La Nina" means "infant girl" in Spanish. It refers to a sustained cooling of sea surface temperatures across a broad region of the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. This tends to be associated with wetter winters in the Northwest Pacific and drier winters in the Southwest United States. La Nina events are also called cold events. The events don't occur as often as El Nino events.

El Nino, Spanish for "Christ child," refers to the warm Pacific Ocean currents that periodically appear around Christmas time and can last for months. It's an anomalous warming of ocean water off the west coast of South America, usually accompanied by heavy rainfall in the coastal regions of Peru and Chile. This warming of Pacific Ocean waters near the Equator typically occurs every 3 to 7 years and dictates a shift in "normal" weather patterns.

China is a country with a vast territory. Great differences in climate are found from region to region owing to China's extensive territory and complex topography. It contains tropical, subtropical, temperate, plateau and alpine zones. The major part of China is affected by the Asian monsoon. Natural disasters are frequent, especially destructive weather such as torrential rain, floods, droughts, typhoons, hail and frost episodes. The hazards which pose the greatest threat to the country's social and economic stability are drought, floods, typhoons, frost, hail and abnormally low temperatures.

In 1997, people in northern China experienced a very hot and dry summer. During the 1997-98 winter, extraordinarily heavy snow fell over the Tibetan Plateau and caused great losses of human life and property. In the summer of 1998, a great flood occurred in the Yangtze River basin, the second biggest flood of the past fifty years. At the same time, the greatest flood in the past fifty years occurred in the Songhua River basin in northeastern China.



In China, most forecasters believe that El Nino is a very useful indicator that can be used in future predictions of climate anomalies.

Meteorological experts attributed the abnormal weather that plagued China in 2000 to the La Nina phenomenon. All over the country huge areas of land suffered from drought, and over 20 million people were short of drinking water.

It is not uncommon for an El Nino winter to be followed by a La Nina one-where climate patterns and worldwide effects are, for the most part, the opposite of those produced by El Nino. Where there was flooding there is drought, where winter weather was abnormally mild, it becomes abnormally harsh.

La Nina has followed El Nino three times in the recent years-after the 1982-83 event and after those of 1986-87 and 1995. The 1998 La Nina hurricane season was the deadliest in the past two centuries. As with El Nino, the effects of La Nina are most pronounced from December to March.

Vocabulary
antigen 抗原
fulmar 臭鸥
mercury 水星
constellation 星座
zooplankton 浮游动物
boomerang 自食其果法

World faces massive increase in CO2 emissions
二氧化碳释放量全球激增
The world is facing a massive increase in carbon dioxide emissions due to population growth and the failure of wealthy countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists also predict that global warming, caused mainly by increasing carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil and petrol in motor vehicles and power stations, will increase the frequency and severity of droughts, flooding and storms, threatening global agricultural production.

Taiwanese scientists succeed in producing medical eggs
台湾科学家成功研制医疗蛋
Scientists in Taiwan have succeeded in making chickens lay eggs that contain antigens in their yolks. These eggs can be consumed by humans and domesticated animals to help them fight various diseases. The antigens in the egg yolks will help the immune system neutralize certain bacteria and viruses that have invaded the body. These medical eggs will eventually be available on the market, but will have to be consumed raw because cooking the eggs will destroy the antigens.

Planet with triple sun detected
银河系有三个太阳



A newly detected planet far away in the galaxy has not one, but three suns, according to astronomers. The planet orbits the main star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation Cygnus. The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, experiences the unearthly spectacle of multiple sunrises and sunsets. Its main sun, bright yellow, hovers close by.

Seabird droppings raising Arctic chemical levels
鸟粪危及北极生物圈



Seabird droppings are leaving more than a foul mess in the Arctic - they are contaminating northern lakes and ponds with extremely high levels of mercury. Fulmars, which look like the common seagull and live on zooplankton, squid and fish in the Atlantic Ocean, are picking up the pollutants from their aquatic feast and carrying the waste back into relatively untouched ecosystems. The birds are creating a "boomerang effect" whereby industrial pollutants thought to be forever lost in the ocean hundreds of kilometers away are returning to land and threatening land-based species.