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第一段
1 .Adam: So, Michelle, shall we make a start on our presentation? We haven’t got that much time left.
亚当:那么,米歇尔,我们开始做演示吧?我们剩下的时间不多了。
2 .Michelle: No, Adam. But at least we’ve done all the background reading. I found it really interesting – I’d never even heard of the Laki eruption before this.
米歇尔:不,亚当。但至少我们已经做了所有的背景阅读。我觉得真的很有趣——在这之前我甚至从未听说过Laki火山爆发。
3 .Adam: Me neither. I suppose 1783 is a long time ago.
亚当:我也是。我想1783年确实是很久以前了。
4 .Michelle: But it was a huge eruption and it had such devastating consequences.
米歇尔:但那次是一次巨大的火山爆发,造成了灾难性的后果。
5 .Adam: I know. It was great there were so many primary sources to look at. It really gives you a sense of how catastrophic the volcano was.
亚当:我知道。很幸运有这么多一手资料供我们查阅。它真正让你感受到这座火山有多么灾难性。
6 .People were really trying to make sense of the science for the first time.
人们当时真的在努力首次理解这个科学现象。
7 .Michelle: That’s right. But what I found more significant was how it impacted directly and indirectly on political events, as well as having massive social and economic consequences.
米歇尔:没错。但我认为更重要的是它如何直接和间接地影响了政治事件,以及产生了巨大的社会和经济后果。
8 .Adam: I know. That should be the main focus of our presentation.
亚当:我知道。这应该是我们演示的主要焦点。
9 .Michelle: The observations made by people at the time were interesting, weren’t they?
米歇尔:当时人们的观察很有意思,不是吗?
10 .I mean, they all gave a pretty consistent account of what happened, even if they didn’t always use the same terminology.
我的意思是,他们都对所发生的事情给出了相当一致的描述,即使他们并不总是使用相同的术语。
11 .Adam: Yeah. I was surprised there were so many weather stations established by that time – so, you know, you can see how the weather changed, often by the hour.
亚当:是的。我对当时已经建立了这么多气象站感到惊讶——你知道,你可以看到天气是如何变化的,通常每小时一变。
12 .Michelle: Right. Writers at the time talked about the Laki haze to describe the volcanic fog that spread across Europe.
米歇尔:对。当时的作家们谈论到"Laki haze",用来描述蔓延到欧洲的火山雾。
13 .They all realised that this wasn’t the sort of fog they were used to – and of course this was in pre-industrial times – so they hadn’t experienced sulphur-smelling fog before.
他们都意识到这不是他们所熟悉的那种雾气——当然那是在工业前时代——所以他们以前没有经历过有硫磺气味的雾气。
14 .Adam: No, that’s true.
亚当:是的,没错。
15 .Michelle: Reports from the period blamed the haze for an increase in headaches, respiratory issues and asthma attacks. And they all describe how it covered the sun and made it look a strange red colour.
米歇尔:当时的报告将这种雾气归咎于引发头痛、呼吸问题和哮喘发作的增加。他们还都描述了如何遮蔽了阳光并使其呈现奇怪的红色。
16 .Adam: Must have been very weird.
亚当:一定很奇怪。
17 .Michelle: It’s interesting that Benjamin Franklin wrote about the haze. Did you read that? He was the American ambassador in Paris at the time.
米歇尔:有趣的是本杰明·富兰克林也写了关于这种雾气的文章。你读过吗?他当时是驻巴黎的美国大使。
18 .Adam: Yeah. At first no one realised that the haze was caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
亚当:是的。起初没有人意识到这种雾气是由冰岛的火山爆发引起的。
19 .Michelle: It was Benjamin Franklin who realised that before anyone else.
米歇尔:是本杰明·富兰克林比其他人先意识到这一点。
20 .Adam: He’s often credited with that, apparently. But a French naturalist beat him to it – I can’t remember his name. I’d have to look it up.
亚当:他通常被认为是第一个意识到的人,显然。但有一位法国博物学家比他更早,我记不得他的名字了。我得查一下。
21 .Then other naturalists had the same idea – all independently of each other.
然后其他博物学家也有了同样的想法——都是独立思考的。
22 .Michelle: Oh right. We should talk about the immediate impact of the eruption, which was obviously enormous – especially in Iceland, where so many people died.
米歇尔:哦,对。我们应该谈谈火山爆发的直接影响,显然是巨大的——尤其是在冰岛,那里有这么多人死亡。
23 .Adam: Mmm. You’d expect that – and the fact that the volcanic ash drifted so swiftly – but not that the effects would go on for so long.
亚当:嗯。这是可以预料的——以及火山灰的迅速飘散——但不会预料到影响会持续这么久。
24 .Or that two years after the eruption, strange weather events were being reported as far away as North America and North Africa.
火山爆发两年后,甚至在北美和北非都出现了奇怪的天气事件。
25 .Michelle: No. I found all that hard to believe too. It must have been terrible – and there was nothing anyone could do about it, even if they knew the ash cloud was coming in their direction.
米歇尔:是的。我也觉得这一切很难以置信。一定很可怕——而且无论他们知道灰云朝他们方向飘来,也无法做任何事情。
第二段
1 .Michelle: We should run through some of the terrible consequences of the eruption experienced in different countries. There’s quite a varied range.
米歇尔:我们应该简要介绍一下不同国家在火山爆发中经历的可怕后果。范围相当广泛。
2 .Adam: Starting with Iceland, where the impact on farming was devastating.
亚当:首先是冰岛,在那里农业受到了毁灭性的影响。
3 .Michelle: Mmm. One of the most dramatic things there was the effect on livestock as they grazed in the fields.
米歇尔:嗯。那里最令人震惊的事情之一是牲畜在田野中吃草时受到的影响。
4 .They were poisoned because they ate vegetation that had been contaminated with fluorine as a result of the volcanic fallout.
牲畜在田野中吃草时受到了污染的植被中的氟的毒害,导致它们中毒。
5 .Adam: That was horrible. In Egypt, the bizarre weather patterns led to a severe drought and as a result the Nile didn’t flood, which meant the crops all failed.
亚当:那真是可怕。在埃及,奇特的气候模式导致了严重的干旱,结果尼罗河没有泛滥,作物全都失败了。
6 .Michelle: It’s so far from where the eruption happened and yet the famine there led to more people dying than any other country. It was worse than the plague.
米歇尔:这离火山爆发发生的地方很远,但饥荒导致的死亡人数比其他任何国家都多。比瘟疫还严重。
7 .Adam: OK. Then in the UK the mortality rate went up a lot – presumably from respiratory illnesses.
亚当:好。然后在英国,死亡率大大增加——可能是因为呼吸系统疾病。
8 .According to one report it was about double the usual number and included an unusually high percentage of people under the age of 25.
根据一份报告,死亡人数是平时的两倍,其中年龄不到25岁的人比例异常高。
9 .Michelle: Mmm. I think people will be surprised to hear that the weather in the USA was badly affected too..
米歇尔:嗯。我觉得人们听到美国的天气也受到了严重影响会感到惊讶。
10 .George Washington even makes a note in his diary that they were snowbound until March in Virginia. That was before he became president.
乔治·华盛顿甚至在他的日记中记录了,弗吉尼亚州直到三月都被大雪困住。那是他成为总统之前的事情。
11 .Adam: Yes, and there was ice floating down the Mississippi, which was unprecedented.
亚当:是的,还有密西西比河上漂浮的冰,这是前所未有的。
12 .Michelle: Astonishing, really. Anyway, what do you think …
米歇尔:真是令人惊讶。总之,你觉得...