VOA慢速英语2016--全球变暖致美国冷战基地再现

AS IT IS 2016-08-10 Cold War Waste Could Reappear Due to Global Warming 全球变暖致美国冷战基地再现

Melting ice on Greenland could expose an unused U.S. military base that contains hazardous¹ waste, scientists warn.

Camp Century was built in 1959. The base was to study the possibility of deploying² nuclear weapons from the Arctic during the Cold War. The Cold War was a period of tension between the former Soviet³ Union and the U.S. which lasted from the end of World War II to 1991.

The base was closed in 1967. Scientists thought that any hazardous material left at the base would be covered with ice forever. Now, new research suggests the base could be exposed to the environment by 2090.

The base is believed to contain biological, chemical and radioactive waste. The study warns that exposed waste could disrupt Greenland’s environment.

William Colgan is a climate and glacier⁴ scientist at York University in Canada. He is the lead author of the study. He said people dealt with waste differently 60 years ago. Now, there are new problems related to the climate that people must think about, he said.

Researchers have now listed the waste at the base. The hazardous substances include 200,000 liters of diesel⁵ fuel, and 240,000 liters of wastewater. There are also polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at the site. Those chemicals are considered bad for the environment.

In addition, there is also an “unknown volume of low-level radioactive coolant from the nuclear generator⁶.”

Researchers studied old engineering records to find out how deeply the waste is buried and how much the ice has moved since the 1960s.

All the waste could enter the environment as the climate warms and the ice sheet melts, researchers said.

"The question is whether it's going to come out in hundreds of years, in thousands of years, or in tens of thousands of years," said James White. He is a climate scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder⁷ who was not involved in the study.

Camp Century covers an area about the size of 100 soccer fields. It is about 200 kilometers from Greenland’s coast. Nearly 200 soldiers lived there when it was an operating U.S. base.

The camp was sometimes called “the city under the ice.”

Any possible cleanup of the site could be tricky⁸. The base belonged to the U.S. However, Greenland belongs to Denmark.

International law has clear rules about dealing⁹ with hazardous waste. But, it is not clear on who is responsible for cleaning up the waste from a long time ago.

The study was published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Words in This Story

hazardous – adj. involving risk or danger

disrupt – v. to interrupt the normal progress or activity

radioactive – adj. having or producing a powerful and dangerous form of energy

coolant – n. a liquid that is used to cool an engine or machine

generator– n. something that produces something?

ice sheet– n. a very large and thick area of ice that covers a region

1 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

2 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 glacier   

n.冰川，冰河

参考例句：

• The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。
• The upper surface of glacier is riven by crevasses.冰川的上表面已裂成冰隙。

5 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

6 generator   

n.发电机，发生器

参考例句：

• All the while the giant generator poured out its power.巨大的发电机一刻不停地发出电力。
• This is an alternating current generator.这是一台交流发电机。

7 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

8 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

9 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。