2018军队职称英语综合类阅读精选：Ocean Plant Life in Decline

 　　Ocean Plant Life in Decline海洋植物数量锐减

　　1.Scientists have discovered plant life covering the surface of the world's oceans is disappearing at a dangerous rate. This plant life called phytoplankton is a vital resource that helps absorb the worst of the "greenhouse gases" involved in global warming. Satellites and ships at sea have confirmed the diminishing productivity of the microscopic plants, which oceanographers say is most striking in the waters of the North Pacific—ranging as far up as the high Arctic. "Whether the lost productivity of the phytoplankton is directly due to increased ocean temperatures that have been recorded for at least the past 20 years remains part of an extremely complex puzzle", says Watson W. Gregg, a NASA biologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in the USA, but it surely offers a fresh clue to the controversy over climate change. According to Gregg, the greatest loss of phytoplankton has occurred where ocean temperatures have risen most significantly between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. In the North Atlantic summertime, sea surface temperatures rose about 1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, while in the North Pacific the ocean's surface temperatures rose about 0.07 of a degree.

　　1、科学家们发现覆盖海洋表面的植物数量正在快速消失。这种被称为“浮游植物”的生物能够吸收导致全球变暖的危害最大的“温室气体”。卫星和海上船舶确认了这种细微生物正在减少。海洋研究者认为这种生物在北太平洋里的消亡速度最快，甚至扩展到了北极圈。“浮游植物的减少是否是过去的20 年间海洋温度的升高直接导致的，这依然是一个未解之迷。”在美国的Goddard空间飞行中心的NASA生物学家Watson W.Gregg如是说。但他表示，这确实提供了一个解决气候变化争议的全新线索。Gregg认为，从80年代初到90年代末，海洋温度明显升高的地方往往是浮游植物大量减少的地方。在北大西洋的夏季，海洋的表面温度在那段时间里升高了1.3华氏度，在北太平洋海洋表面，温度升髙了0.07度。

　　2.While the link between ocean temperatures and the productivity of plankton is striking, other factors can also affect the health of the plants. They need iron as nourishment, for example, and much of it reaches them in powerful winds that sweep iron-containing dust across the oceans from continental deserts. When those winds diminish or fail, plankton can suffer. According to Gregg and his colleagues, there have been small but measurable decreases in the amount of iron deposited over the oceans in recent years.

　　2、虽然海洋温度的升高和浮游植物数量之间的关系密不可分，但是其他 因素也会影响这种海洋植物的健康。比如说它们需要铁来当做养料，这种养 料来自于大陆上含铁的沙尘。大风把这些沙尘吹向海洋，当这些风减弱或者 消亡，浮游植物的生存就会面临危胁。Gregg和他的同事认为，近年来海洋中 的铁含量有所下降，尽管幅度较小，但是已经能够通过仪器测量出来。

　　3.The significant decline in plankton productivity has a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle. Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the Carbon dioxide in the world's environment because they use the carbon, along with sunlight, for growth, and release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. Primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic, Gregg and his colleagues determined from their satellite observations and shipboard surveys. Studies combining all the major ocean basins of the world have revealed the decline in plankton productivity to be more than 6 percent.

　　3、浮游植物数量明显减少对全球碳循环有着直接的影响。通常，这种海洋植物吸收了全球大约一半的二氧化碳，因为它们借助二氧化碳以及阳光来生长，并把氧气释放到大气中，这就是我们熟知的光合作用。浮游植物的主要生长区域是北太平洋，那里的浮游植物数量在过去的20年里降低了9%以上，在北大西洋降低了约7%,这是Gregg和他的同事利用卫星观察和船舶测量得出的结论。对世界上主要海洋盆地的研究表明，浮游植物的数量下降了6%以上。