(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report.
Many Americans start to closely follow weather reports in the early fall. During the Atlantic hurricane season, predicting the strength and movement of these huge storm systems is of crucial importance. Thanks to new supercomputers, meteorologists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are getting better at predicting the weather as far as six days out.
Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast last October, and caused deaths and widespread damage, it was one of the costliest storm in U.S. history. At the time, some people blamed meteorologists for not correctly predicting the path of the storm.
But weather forecasting is extremely difficult, says Ben Kyger. He is the Director of Central Operations at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction in College Park, Maryland.
"You've got major patterns in the atmosphere, like the jet stream, but you've also got little eddies, little currents, little things happening all over the place. All these little changes are interacting with each other, continuously, all day long. So if you look at it from above, from a satellite, you see the atmosphere moving and churning in big ways and little ways."
Ben Kyger says oceans are another issue because they closely interact with the atmosphere and have a huge effect on storms. NOAA has spent about $20 million on two new supercomputers, in an effort to improve the dependability of the forecasts.
"These computers generate the initial model guidance that the whole forecast process depends on, for all the weather information that you see, with snowstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, how hot it's going to be today — all of your weather forecasts start with what comes off of these supercomputers."
It takes a huge amount of computational power to examine data from weather satellites, ground stations and other sources. It then take a lot of power to predict temperature, air pressure, humidity and wind speed.
But human brains and experience are still very important to the process. Meteorologists at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction scan the same data that the supercomputers get before issuing a weather report.
"They are looking at lots of different models run of different computers, and then they are creating that five-day forecast. They use lots of scientific and subjective knowledge from doing it year after year. They know where the models are strong, where they're weak and they give us significantly better forecasts than the models would do by themselves."
NOAA issues worldwide forecasts every six hours every day of the year. The reports are free and are helpful for many countries that cannot afford their own weather service. NOAA continues working to improve its weather-forecasting abilities, another upgrade of its weather-predicting supercomputers is planed for as earlier as 2015.
And that's the Technology Report from VOA Learning English. I'm June Simms.
译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
词汇解释
1.meteorologist n. 气象学者
Meteorologist are predicting more rain in the coming days a beleaguered population.
气象学家预计接下来几天会有更多的降雨，这对困顿的灾区人民来说无疑是雪上加霜。
2.eddies n. [流] 旋涡；[流] 涡流（eddy的复数）
The motor car disappeared in eddy of dust.
汽车在一片扬尘的涡流中不见了。
3.tornado n. [气象] 龙卷风；旋风；暴风；大雷雨
The tornado rubbished the whole village.
龙卷风毁掉了整个村庄。
4.humidity n. [气象] 湿度；湿气
The heat and humidity were insufferable.
炎热与潮湿令人难以忍受。
内容解析
1.All these little changes are interacting with each other, continuously, all day long.
interact with 与……相互作用
These two chemicals interact with each other at a certain temperature.
这两种化学物质在一定的温度下相互作用。
Teachers have a limited amount of time to interact with each child.
教师和每个孩子沟通的时间有限。
2.NOAA has spent about $20 million on two new supercomputers, in an effort to improve the dependability of the forecasts.
in an effort to 企图（努力想）；试图要
They hushed up the scandal in an effort to save face.
他们掩盖了丑闻以图保全面子。
She stopped smoking in an effort to control weight.
为了控制体重，她戒了烟。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。
许多美国人在初秋开始密切关注天气预报，在大西洋飓风季节，预测这些巨大暴风系统的强度和运动至关重要。多亏有了新型超级计算机，海洋和大气管理局的气象学家可以更好地预测六天后的天气。
去年10月飓风桑迪袭击了东海岸，导致人员死亡和大范围的破坏，是美国历史上最惨重的风暴之一。当时有人责备气象学家不能准确地预测风暴的路径。
但Ben Kyger说天气预报是相当困难的，他是海洋和大气管理局国家环境预报中心中央操作系统主任，该中心位于马里兰州帕克分校。
“我们了解大气的主要模式，比如高速气流，但我们知道大气中到处会产生小涡流、小气流等，所有这些变化都会不断地互相作用。所以如果从卫星上往下看，能看到大气在大范围和小范围累移动和翻腾。”
Ben Kyger说海洋是另一个因素，因为海洋能与大气进行密切的互动，对风暴有巨大的影响。海洋和大气管理局在两台新型超级计算机上耗资2000万美元，希望提高预测的独立性。
“这些计算机会生成整个预报过程要依赖的初始指导模型，包括你能看到的所有天气信息、暴风雪、龙卷风、飓风，今天的气温，所有的天气预报都源于这些超级计算机。”
检查来自气象卫星、地面站等来源的数据需要巨大的计算能力，还需要巨大的计算能力来预测气温、气压、湿度和风速。
但人脑和经验对该过程来说仍很重要，国家环境预报中心的气象学家审查超级计算机获得的数据，然后发布天气预报。
“他们会查看不同计算机运行的不同模型，然后预测出5天内的天气。他们使用年复一年生成的大量的科学和客观的知识，他们知道模型的优缺点，然后做出比模型本身做出的更好的预测。”
海洋和大气管理局一年中每天每6小时都要发布天气预报，这些预报是免费的，帮助了很多无法自行承担天气服务的国家。海洋和大气管理局继续努力改善其预测天气的能力，计划最早在2015年将天气预报超级计算机再升级一次。
这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道，我是琼·西姆斯。
