Explorer's Guide to World Weather

Explorer's Guide to World Weather. Written by Celeste Fraser.

世界天气探索指南 塞莱斯特·弗雷泽 著

Introducing Earth. Oceans and air swirl around Earth. Ocean waters that wash the shores of North America also wash the shores of Asia. The breeze that blows curtains in South America rustles leaves in Africa's trees. Yet regions on Earth can be very different from one another. In some

认识地球 海洋与大气环绕着地球环流不息 冲刷着北美洲海岸的海水，同样也冲刷着亚洲的海岸 吹动南美洲窗帘的微风，也会沙沙拂动非洲的树叶 但地球上的不同区域却可以千差万别 在有些

How scientists measure weather. How many words can you think of to describe weather? hot cold warm chilly rainy sunny snowy Foggy the list could go on and on all these words describe two things temperature and precipitation Temperature is how hot or cold a place is Precipitation is moisture that falls to the ground in the form of rain, snow, sleet, or hail. To track the weather of a place, we measure two conditions. How hot is it? How wet is it? Climate is simply the average weather in a place over long periods of time.

科学家如何测量天气 你能想出多少个词语来描述天气呢？ 炎热、寒冷、温暖、清凉、下雨、晴天、下雪、起雾，这个清单可以一直列下去。所有这些词语都描述了两样东西：气温和降水。气温指一个地方的冷热程度，降水则是降落到地面的水汽，形态包括雨、雪、雨夹雪或冰雹。 要追踪一个地方的天气，我们需要测量两个条件。 天气有多热？ 降水有多少？ 气候其实就是一个地方长期以来的平均天气状况。

Weather information can be recorded on graphs. Look at the temperature graph below. The graph shows information on the weather in Sydney, Australia, for the first six months of the year. The numbers on the left side show the degrees of temperature. Now look at the precipitation graph. It is very similar, except that, on the left side, the numbers show amounts of precipitation in inches. By collecting weather information over time at many places, scientists have discovered that Earth has many different climate patterns.

天气信息可以记录在图表上 来看看下方的气温图表 这张图表展示了澳大利亚悉尼一年头六个月的天气信息 左侧的数字代表气温的度数 现在我们再来看看降水图表 它和气温图表非常相似，只不过左侧的数字代表降水量，单位是英寸 通过长期在多个地点收集天气信息，科学家发现地球拥有许多不同的气候模式。

Climate Field Guide. What determines Earth's climate patterns? It all starts with the sun. The sun warms our planet, but its warmth is spread unevenly over Earth's surface. The equator is an imaginary line that circles the middle of Earth like a belt. Areas near the equator tend to be much warmer than areas far to the north or south. Because Earth is shaped like a ball, the sun's rays hit Earth at different angles in different places. The sun's rays are most direct around Earth's middle and least direct at the north and south poles.

气候指南 是什么决定了地球的气候模式呢？ 一切都要从太阳说起 太阳温暖了我们的星球，但它的热量在地球表面分布并不均匀 赤道是一条假想线，像腰带一样环绕在地球中部 赤道附近的区域通常比远离赤道的南北区域温暖得多 因为地球是球形，太阳光线在不同地点以不同角度照射地球 太阳光线在地球中部照射最直接，在南北两极照射最不直接

Try this. Mark an X in the center of a sheet of paper. Have a friend hold the paper so it's facing you. Shine a flashlight at the paper so it makes a circle of light on the paper around the X. Have your friend slowly tilt the paper away from you. As the paper is tilted away, the circle of light will stretch to become an oval. The same amount of light is being spread over more of the paper. As a result, even though the x on the paper is still in the light, it is now getting less light than it was before. In the same way, because Earth is shaped like a ball, as you move north or south away from the equator, Earth curves more and more away from the Sun. Earth's polar regions are cold because they receive less direct sunlight than areas near the equator.

试一试 在一张纸的中心标记一个X 让你的朋友拿着纸，正对着你 打开手电筒照向纸张，让X周围出现一个圆形光斑，再让你的朋友慢慢把纸向远离你的方向倾斜 随着纸张倾斜，圆形光斑会拉伸变成椭圆形 同样多的光线，现在分散在了更大的纸面上 所以，哪怕纸上的X仍然在光照里，它现在得到的光线也比之前更少了 同样的道理，因为地球是球形，当你从赤道向南北移动时，地表越来越弯曲，离太阳越来越远 地球极地地区寒冷，就是因为它们比赤道地区获得的直射阳光更少