Lesson 14-1??????? The Butterfly Effect

?Beyond two or three days, the world's best weather forecasts are speculative, and beyond six or seven they are worthless.

The Butterfly Effect is the reason. For small pieces of weather -- and to a global forecaster, small can mean thunderstorms and blizzards -- any prediction deteriorates rapidly. Errors and uncertainties multiply, cascading upward through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent-size eddies that only satellites can see. The modern weather models work with a grid of points of the order of sixty miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to be guessed, since ground stations and satellites cannot see everywhere. But suppose the earth could be covered with sensors spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals all the way to the top of the atmosphere.

forecast?/?f??rk?st/?預(yù)測(cè);預(yù)報(bào)

speculative?/?spekj?l?t?v/??投機(jī)的;猜測(cè)的;推測(cè)的;

thunderstorm?/?θ?nd?rst??rm/?雷暴;雷雨

blizzard?/?bl?z?rd/??暴風(fēng)雪;雪暴;

deteriorate?/d??t?ri?re?t/??惡化;退化;變壞

multiply?/?m?lt?pla?/? 成倍增加;迅速增加，?乘以;乘;(使)繁殖，增殖;

cascade?/k??ske?d/? 瀑布似的落下;大量落下，? 傾瀉，流注? ?<電>級(jí); 級(jí)聯(lián), 串聯(lián);一連串;大量;

upward?/??pw?rd/??向上的;(數(shù)量、價(jià)格)上升的，上漲的

turbulent??/?t??rbj?l?nt/??動(dòng)蕩的;混亂的;湍動(dòng)的;洶涌的;

feature?/?fi?t??r/??特征;特點(diǎn);特色

dust devil? 小塵暴、塵旋風(fēng)

squall?/skw??l/? 暴風(fēng)

continent-size? 和整塊大陸一樣大的

eddy?/?edi/??渦流;旋渦;

grid?/ɡr?d/??(地圖上的)坐標(biāo)方格;? 網(wǎng)格

of the order of 大約

sensor?/?sens?r/??傳感器

interval??/??nt?rvl/? 間隔