高考英语 阅读素材 人海洋的演变史及堪忧的未来素材【更多关注@高中学习资料库 】.docVIP

PAGE  更多关注@高中学习资料库 微信：gzxxzlk 海洋的演变史及堪忧的未来 The ocean the Titanic sailed through just over 100 years ago was very different from the one we swim in today. Global warming is increasing ocean temperatures and harming marine food webs. Nitrogen run-off from fertilizers is causing coastal dead zones. A McGill-led international research team has now completed the first global study of changes that occurred in a crucial component of ocean chemistry, the nitrogen cycle, at the end of the last ice age. The results of their study confirm that oceans are good at balancing the nitrogen cycle on a global scale. But the data also shows that it is a slow process that may take many centuries, or even millennia, raising worries about the effects of the scale and speed of current changes in the ocean. For the first time we can quantify how oceans responded to slow, natural climate warming as the world emerged from the last ice age, says Prof. Eric Galbraith from McGill Universitys Department of Earth and Oceanic Sciences, who led the study. And what is clear is that there is a strong climate sensitivity in the ocean nitrogen cycle. ? The nitrogen cycle is a key component of the global ocean metabolism（新陈代谢）. Like the proteins that are essential to human health, nitrogen is crucial to the health of oceans. And just as proteins are carried by the blood and circulate through the body, the nitrogen in the ocean is kept in balance by marine bacteria through a complicated cycle that keeps the ocean healthy. The phytoplankton（浮游植物） (microscopic organisms at the base of the food chain) fix nitrogen in the shallow, sunlit waters of the ocean, and then as they die and sink, nitrogen is eliminated (a process known as denitrification) in dark, oxygen-poor pockets of the ocean depths. ? Using sediment gathered from the ocean floor in different areas of the world, the researchers were able to confirm that as the ice sheets started melting and the climate warmed up at the end of the last ice a