托福听力短文 I-11-3
时间：2009-01-10 01:40:44
搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。
（单词翻译）
(Woman) Today I want to talk about the Earth's last major climatic shift, at the end of the last ice age.
But first, let's back up a moment and review what we know about climatic change in general. First, we defined "climate" as consistent patterns of weather over significant periods of time.
In general, changes in climate occur when the energy balance of the Earth is disturbed. Solar energy enters the Earth's atmosphere as light and is radiated by the Earth's surface as heat. Land, water, and ice each affect this energy exchange differently. The system is so complex that, to date, our best computer models are only crude approximations and are not sophisticated enough to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change.
Of course, that doesn't keep us from speculating. For instance, volcanic1 activity is one mechanism2 that might affect climatic change. When large volcanoes erupt, they disperse3 tons of particles into the upper atmosphere, where the particles then reflect light. Since less light is entering the system of energy exchange, the result would be a cooling of the Earth's surface.
Of course, this is just one possible mechanism of global climate change. In all probability, a complete explanation would involve several different mechanisms4 operating at the same time.
分享到：
收听单词发音 
