2008年职称英语阅读理解习题（四）.doc

2008年职称英语阅读理解习题（四） Ebbysemeyer—King of Currents 　　On December 9, 1994, the Huundai Seattle, a large freighter, lost 49 containers of cargo during a storm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Among the cargo that fell overboard were some 34, 000 hockey gloves. Unable to retrieve the lost cargo, the ship headed for its destination in the United States. 　　What happened to the hockey gloves? Eight months later, the crew of a fishing boat found seven of them 1, 300 kilometers off the Oregon coast. Six months after that, the rest of the gloves began washing up on beaches in Washington state. 　　“Just as my colleague Jay Ingraham and I predicted,” said Ebbyesemeyer, a scientist in Seattle. An authority on ocean currents, Ebbysemeyer has been called the “King of Currents.” For more than 30 years, he has been tracking an assortment of floating objects—everything from huge icebergs to tiny bathtub toys. With his knowledge of ocean currents and sophisticated computer program developed by Ingraham, he can now predict with amazing accuracy which way floating objects will drift and where and when they will reach shore. 　　Why is it important to know such things? Because, Ebbysemeyer points out, knowledge of ocean currents can help determine how far an oil spill might spread or where the sewage from a treatment plant will go. By mapping currents, scientists can also figure out where plankton might drift or what paths salmon will take through the ocean to reach the streams of their birth. 　　Ebbysemeyer says currents are like giant rivers in the ocean. They are found both at the oceans surface and several thousands feet down on the seafloor. 　　Surface currents are driven mainly by the wind and by earths rotation, through a force called the Coriolis effect. As the wind pushes the water forward, the Coriolis effect nudges it slightly sideways. The two influences combine to make surface waters move in great loops. 　　Deep ocean currents are created as seawater approaches the North and Sout