When Forty Degrees Becomes the New Normal: The Western Europe Heatwave and the Summer We All Share — HSK 5-6 Chinese Listening Practice (5:27) | Fluentide

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When Forty Degrees Becomes the New Normal: The Western Europe Heatwave and the Summer We All Share — HSK 5-6 Chinese Listening Practice (5:27) | Fluentide

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原文

Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.

今天我们聊一件，正在我们眼前发生，

也注定会被反复提起的事——

今年夏天，西欧，

正在经历一场，

又早、又猛、又持久的热浪。

我们先说"早"。

这场高温，五月底就开始了。

要知道，那时候，

连夏天都还没正式到。

但是葡萄牙，

当时就冲到了四十度以上，

直接打破了五月的历史纪录。

而进入六月，

情况变得更加极端。

我们来看一组让人心惊的数字。

法国首都巴黎，

今年预计将第一次，

在六月，突破四十度。

对一座以温和气候著称的城市来说，

这几乎是难以想象的。

西班牙和葡萄牙的部分地区，

气温正逼近四十五度。

意大利、英国、德国、

比利时、瑞士……

大半个西欧，

都笼罩在这片热浪之下。

很多地方的气温，

比往年同期，

高出了整整十到十五度。

那么，问题来了：

这一切，到底是怎么回事？

要理解这场热浪，

你需要认识一个词，

叫"热穹顶"。

我给你打一个比方。

你可以把它想象成，

一口巨大的、

倒扣在西欧上空的锅。

在正常的天气系统里，

大气是上下流动、不断交换的。

但是这一次，

一个异常强大的高气压系统，

像一块巨石，

死死地压在了西欧上空，

迟迟不肯移动。

它把底下的热空气，

牢牢地封住，

让热量只进不出。

太阳日复一日地炙烤，

锅里的温度，

便不断累积、节节攀升。

雪上加霜的是，

这一次，

还有来自北非撒哈拉的滚滚热浪，

被卷入这个系统。

干、热、再加上"焖"，

共同造就了这场，

极具杀伤力的高温。

而"杀伤力"这个词，

绝非危言耸听。

极端高温，

是这个星球上，

最致命的天气之一。

它不像台风、洪水那样，

来得轰轰烈烈，

但它常常无声无息地，

夺走最脆弱者的生命——

独居的老人、

年幼的孩子、

还有那些，

本就患有疾病的人。

就在上个月那一轮高温中，

仅西班牙一国，

就有一百多人，

因高温而离世。

法国，也有多人遇难。

这些冰冷的数字背后，

是一个个，

再也回不来的，鲜活的人。

面对来势汹汹的高温，

各国政府，

纷纷启动了应急机制：

发布最高级别的红色预警，

开放带空调的公共纳凉中心，

调整学校和户外工作的时间，

挨家挨户地，

去探望独居的老人。

这些努力，都很重要。

但是，如果我们把目光，

从这一场热浪上，

稍稍抬高一点，

就会看到一个，

更令人不安的图景。

几乎所有的气候科学家，

都在反复强调同一句话：

这种又早、又强、又持久的极端高温，

正在从"几十年一遇的异常"，

变成"年年都来的常态"。

今年很热，

去年很热，

前年，同样很热。

这背后，

是一条清晰得，

不容辩驳的趋势线：

我们的地球，

正在一年比一年，

更暖。

而气候变化，

就是那只，

推高温度的，看不见的手。

说到这里，

我想和你聊聊，

这件事更深的一层。

长久以来，

"全球变暖"，

对很多人而言，

是一个有点抽象、

有点遥远，

甚至有点令人厌倦的词。

我们在新闻里听它，

在课本里读它，

却很难真正，

为它感到切肤之痛。

但是西欧的这个夏天，

正在改变这一切。

当四十度的高温，

开始一次又一次地，

冲进我们的城市、

冲进我们的生活，

气候变化，

就不再是一张图表、

一个预测、

一句口号。

它变成了，

你我每年夏天，

都必须亲身承受的，

那份真实的、滚烫的炎热。

它也在向我们，

提出一个，

无法回避的问题：

一个正在变暖的星球，

究竟，

是属于哪一代人，

要去面对的难题？

是上一代？

还是，

恰恰就是我们，

以及我们的孩子？

节目的最后，

我想把两个问题，

留给你。

第一，回到你自己的生活。

这些年，

你有没有真切地感觉到，

夏天，

正变得一年比一年，难熬？

第二，

面对一个越来越热的未来，

我们或许无法，

凭一己之力，

让地球凉下来。

但是在你力所能及的范围内，

有没有那么一件小事，

是你愿意，

从今年夏天，

就开始去做的？

这两个问题，

没有标准答案。

但是它们，

值得你慢慢地想。

English transcript reference

Today we'll talk about something happening right before our eyes,

and destined to be brought up again and again —

this summer, Western Europe

is going through

an early, fierce, and persistent heatwave.

Let's first talk about 'early'.

This high heat began at the end of May.

Mind you, at that point,

summer hadn't even officially arrived.

But Portugal,

at the time, shot above forty degrees,

directly breaking the historical record for May.

And entering June,

the situation became even more extreme.

Let's look at a set of alarming numbers.

France's capital, Paris,

this year is expected, for the first time,

to break forty degrees in June.

For a city renowned for its mild climate,

this is almost unimaginable.

Parts of Spain and Portugal —

temperatures are approaching forty-five degrees.

Italy, the UK, Germany,

Belgium, Switzerland …

most of Western Europe

is blanketed under this heatwave.

Temperatures in many places

are a full ten to fifteen degrees

higher than the same period in past years.

So, the question arises:

what on earth is going on?

To understand this heatwave,

you need to learn a term,

called a 'heat dome'.

Let me give you a metaphor.

You can imagine it as

a giant pot,

turned upside down over Western Europe.

In a normal weather system,

the atmosphere flows up and down, constantly exchanging.

But this time,

an unusually powerful high-pressure system,

like a boulder,

has pressed down hard over Western Europe,

refusing, for a long while, to move.

It seals the hot air beneath it

firmly shut,

letting heat in but not out.

The sun bakes it day after day,

and the temperature inside the pot

keeps building, climbing higher and higher.

To make matters worse,

this time,

there's also rolling heat from the Sahara in North Africa,

swept into the system.

Dry, hot, and on top of that 'stewed' —

together they've created this

intensely destructive high heat.

And the word 'destructive'

is by no means scaremongering.

Extreme heat

is one of the deadliest forms of weather

on this planet.

It doesn't arrive dramatically,

like a typhoon or a flood,

but it often, silently and without a sound,

takes the lives of the most vulnerable —

the elderly living alone,

young children,

and those

already suffering from illness.

In just last month's round of heat,

in Spain alone,

more than a hundred people

passed away due to the high heat.

France, too, had several deaths.

Behind these cold numbers

are individual,

vivid people who will never come back.

Facing the menacing heat,

governments of every country

have activated emergency mechanisms:

issuing the highest-level red alerts,

opening air-conditioned public cooling centers,

adjusting school and outdoor-work hours,

and going door to door

to visit the elderly living alone.

These efforts all matter.

But if we lift our gaze

from this one heatwave,

just a little higher,

we'll see a

more unsettling picture.

Almost all climate scientists

keep stressing the same sentence:

this kind of early, strong, persistent extreme heat

is shifting from a 'once-in-decades anomaly'

into a 'comes-every-year normal'.

This year is very hot,

last year was very hot,

the year before, equally hot.

Behind this

is a trend line so clear

it cannot be argued away:

our planet

is getting warmer

year by year.

And climate change

is the invisible hand

pushing the temperature up.

Speaking of this,

I want to talk with you about

a deeper layer of this.

For a long time,

'global warming',

to many people,

has been a somewhat abstract,

somewhat distant,

even somewhat tiresome word.

We hear it in the news,

read it in textbooks,

yet find it hard to truly

feel its sting on our own skin.

But this summer in Western Europe

is changing all of that.

When forty-degree heat

starts, again and again,

to surge into our cities,

to surge into our lives,

climate change

is no longer a chart,

a forecast,

a slogan.

It has become

the heat that you and I, every summer,

must bear in person —

that real, scalding heat.

It is also posing to us

an unavoidable

question:

a warming planet —

exactly

which generation's problem

is it to face?

The last generation's?

Or

precisely ours,

and our children's?

At the end of the show,

I want to leave you

with two questions.

First, back to your own life.

In these years,

have you truly felt

that summer

is becoming harder to endure, year by year?

Second,

facing a hotter and hotter future,

we may not be able,

by our own strength alone,

to cool the planet down.

But within what you're able to do,

is there one small thing

you'd be willing,

starting this summer,

to begin doing?

These two questions

have no standard answer.

But they

are worth thinking about slowly.

Listen again

Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.