[考博英語]2017考博英語閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（四十六）_考博_旭晨教育

2017 考博英語 閱讀題源經濟學人文章每日精析（四十六）

考博英語閱讀大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《經濟學人》雜志文章作為題源，旭晨教育考博頻道為考博生們將其中的文章進行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英語閱讀水平，讀懂長難句。

導讀

霧霾，是霧和霾的組合詞。霧霾常見于城市。中國不少地區將霧并入霾一起作為災害性天氣現象進行預警預報，統稱為“霧霾天氣”。

霧霾是特定氣候條件與人類活動相互作用的結果。高密度人口的經濟及社會活動必然會排放大量細顆粒物(PM 2.5)，一旦排放超過大氣循環能力和承載度，細顆粒物濃度將持續積聚，此時如果受靜穩天氣等影響，極易出現大范圍的霧霾。

Retired jet engines could help clear smog

退役噴射發動機可以用來驅逐霧霾

A new idea to blow big-city peasoupers away

吹散大都市霧霾的新方法

Nov 26th 2016

2016年11月26日

TO LAND at Indira Gandhi Airport is to descend from clear skies to brown ones. Delhi’s air is toxic. According to the World Health Organisation, India’s capital has the most polluted atmosphere of all the world’s big cities. The government is trying to introduce rules that will curb emissions—allowing private cars to be driven only on alternate days, for example, and enforcing better emissions standards for all vehicles. But implementing these ideas, even if that can be done successfully, will change things only slowly. A quick fix would help. And Moshe Alamaro, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks he has one.

飛機在英迪拉甘地機場著陸的過程中，天空會由明朗轉為棕黃。德里的空氣是有毒的。據世界衛生組織報道，印度首都是全世界空氣污染最嚴重的城市。政府正努力制定控制排放的條例，比如：私家車單雙數出行、強制提高所有車輛的排放標準。但即使這些方法都能順利實施，情況也不會立刻好轉。一個速成方法將有所幫助。麻省理工學院的一名研究員Moshe Alamaro提出了一個想法。

implement ['?mpl?m(?)nt] v.實施

His idea is to take a jet engine, put it next to one of India’s dirty coal-fired power plants, point its exhaust nozzle at the sky and then switch it on. His hope is that the jet’s exhaust will disrupt a meteorologicalphenomenon known as “inversion”, in which a layer of warm air settles over cooler air, trapping it, and that the rising stream of exhaust will carry off the tiny particles of matter that smog is composed of.

他的想法是在印度骯臟的燃煤發電廠的旁邊放置一個噴氣發動機，將其排氣噴嘴對準天空并開啟。他希望噴氣機的排氣將破壞“逆溫層”這一氣象現象。逆溫層里上層空氣溫度較高，下層溫度較低，致使暖空氣將冷空氣和攜帶霧霾微粒的上升排氣困在里面。

meteorological [,mi?t??r?'l?d??k?l] adj.氣象學的

注：逆溫層: 一般情況下，在低層大氣中，氣溫是隨高度的增加而降低的。但有時在某些層次可能出現相反的情況，氣溫隨高度的增加而升高，這種現象稱為逆溫。出現逆溫現象的大氣層稱為逆溫層。

Inversion exacerbates air pollution in Delhi and in many other cities, from Los Angeles to Tehran. A particularly intense example caused the Great Smog of London in 1952, when four days of air pollution contributed to 12,000 deaths. Dr Alamaro thinks a jet engine could punch through the inversion layer to create a “virtual chimney” which would carry the trapped pollution above it, so that it could be dispersed in the wider atmosphere. He calculates that all the emissions from a gigawatt coal-fired power plant could be lifted away using a single engine with a nozzle speed of 460 metres a second. However, he has not calculated whether a jet engine could disrupt the inversion layer and allow the pollution to escape the city—so he is now going to test that hypothesis.

逆溫加劇了德里市和其他從天使港一路到德黑蘭這些城市的空氣污染。最嚴重的便是1952倫敦煙霧事件——持續四天的空氣污染導致了12000人死亡。Alamaro博士認為，噴射發動機可以穿透逆溫層，制造一個“虛擬煙囪”，將逆溫層里的污染物帶到逆溫層之上，這樣污染物便可以分散到更廣闊的大氣層中了。根據他的計算，用一個噴氣速度為460米/秒的噴射發動機就可以帶走一個千兆瓦燃煤電廠的全部排放量。然而他還沒有算出一個噴氣發動機是否足以穿透逆溫層并把污染物帶出城市，所以他現在要驗證這一假設。

exacerbate [?g'z?s?be?t] v.使加劇

hypothesis [ha?'p?θ?s?s] n.假設

Within eight months, Dr Alamaro plans to put one of his updrafters next to a coal-fired power plant and monitor what happens using a fleet of drones. He is in discussions with Tata Group, a conglomeratewith an electricity-generating arm, to run it next to one of the firm’s power stations. Another good candidate would be a government-run plant at Badarpur, less than 50km from the middle of Delhi. According to the Centre for Science and the Environment, a research and lobbying group based in the Indian capital, Badarpur is one of the most polluting power plants in the country. Earlier this month the government shut it down for ten days as part of a set of emergency measures intended to curb a particularly intense bout of air pollution.

在接下來的八個月內，Alamaro博士計劃將氣流上升裝置放在燃煤發電廠旁邊并用一隊無人機進行監控。他正在與塔塔集團(擁有一家發電廠)進行商議，并準備在該公司的一家發電站旁進行實驗。另一個較好的選擇便是位于巴達普(距德里市中心不到50千米)的官辦工廠。據科學與環境中心稱，(德里的一家調查和游說團體)巴達普的電廠是該國污染最嚴重的發電廠之一。本月早些時候，政府為了遏制極端嚴重的空氣污染，實施了一系列緊急措施。其中就包括將巴達普電廠強制關閉十天。

conglomerate [k?n'gl?m(?)r?t] n.企業集團

Dr Alamaro has already found some of the decommissioned jet engines he needs to build his first updrafter. Both the Indian and the American air forces have been forthcoming. The Indians have offered six retired engines for nothing and the Americans are in the process of approving a further four engines from the Boneyard, an aircraft-storage facility located on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. They are asking for just $5,000 per jet to cover the labour needed to prepare the engines, plus shipping.

Alamaro博士已經找到了用來組建第一個氣流上升裝置的退役噴氣發動機。印度和美國海軍都已經給他提供了幫助。印度海軍已經無償提供了6臺退役發動機，美國海軍準備再從Boneyard(位于亞利桑那州戴維斯 - 芒森空軍基地的飛機儲存廠)調來四臺噴氣發動機，目前還在批準中。美國海軍只索要了每只5,000美元的費用，包括機器的搬運勞務費和運輸費。

Some meteorologists are sceptical. They suggest that the engines on offer will not have the oomph to push material through Delhi’s inversion layer, especially during daylight hours, when the boundary between warm and cool air sits at an altitude of around a kilometre. They also say that Dr Alamaro’s notion of a virtual chimney is too simple. Turbulence and friction will weaken the exhaust stream as it climbs. Moreover, even if the technique does work, using it to attack a citywide inversion layer would require so many jets and so much fuel as to be prohibitively expensive, says Alexander Baklanov, a researcher at the World Meteorological Organisation, in Geneva.

一些氣象學家對此持懷疑態度。他們表示這些噴射發動機提供的動力不足以把污染物帶出逆溫層，尤其是在白天，熱冷空氣的邊界大概有一公里寬。他們還說Alamaro博士的虛擬煙囪理論太過簡單。氣流波動和摩擦會在氣流上升的過程中削弱氣流。此外日內瓦世界氣象組織的一名研究員Alexander Baklanov稱，即便該技術有效，但是想要用發動機穿透一個整個城市的逆溫層將需要許多發動機和燃料，費用也會高到天上去。

Turbulence ['t??bj?l(?)ns] n.騷亂

prohibitively [pr?u'hibitivli] adv.過高地

Dr Alamaro, naturally, disagrees—and if he can keep to his timetable it will not be long before it is clear who is right. Even if his ambitions for citywide arrays of virtual chimneys prove too ambitious, they may still work in some of the worst cases of pollution. Andreas Christen, who studies urban meteorology at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, notes that the direst episodes of pollution happen when air is cold—at night, for example.This is because the air contracts into a smaller volume at low temperatures, giving warm air above it room to expand downwards. That concentrates airborne gunk, but it also brings the inversion layer within closer range of Dr Alamaro’s jets. As Dr Christen observes, some farmers in rich countries already use helicopters to disrupt inversion layers above their fields and thus protect their crops from frost. Dr Alamaro’s jets may offer an alternative.

當然Alamaro博士不同意此說法——如果他能夠按時完成實驗，那么不久之后就會清楚誰對誰錯了。即使他在全市布置虛擬煙囪陣的野心過大，這一措施在極端污染的情況下還是可以用的。溫哥華不列顛哥倫比亞大學研究城市氣象學的Andreas Christen指出最嚴重的污染往往出現在天氣寒冷時，例如：晚上。據Christen博士觀察，一些發達國家的農民已經在用直升機來驅散田地上方逆溫層從而保護作物免受霜凍了。