高普考/三四等/高員級◆英文題庫下載題庫

When provided with continuous nourishment, trees, like people, grow “complacent自滿、自鳴得意”—the word tree ring年輪 scientists use to describe trees like those on the floor表面, （房間的）地板 of the Colorado River Valley, whose roots tap into thick reservoir水庫；蓄水池 of moist soil.

Complacent自滿、自鳴得意 trees aren’t much use for learning about climate history, because they pack on wide new rings of wood even in dry years. To find trees that feel the same climatic pulses as the river, trees whose rings widen and narrow from year to year with the river itself, scientists have...

When provided with continuous nourishment, trees, like people, grow “complacent自滿、自鳴得意”—the word tree ring年輪 scientists use to describe trees like those on the floor表面, （房間的）地板 of the Colorado River Valley, whose roots tap into thick reservoir水庫；蓄水池 of moist soil.

Complacent自滿、自鳴得意 trees aren’t much use for learning about climate history, because they pack on wide new rings of wood even in dry years. To find trees that feel the same climatic pulses as the river, trees whose rings widen and narrow from year to year with the river itself, scientists have to climb up the steep, rocky  slopes斜坡 above the valley and look for gnarled（尤指因為年老或壞天氣的侵害而）粗糙, ugly trees, the kind that loggers樵夫 ignore.

For some reason such “sensitive” trees seem to live longer than the complacent ones.

“Maybe you can get too much of a good thing,” says Dave Meko, a tree-ring scientist who has been studying the climate history of the western United States for decades.

Tree-ring fieldwork實地考察 is hardly expensive, but during the relatively相對地 wet 1980s and early ’90s, Meko found it difficult to raise even the modest funds for his work.

“You don’t generate interest to study drought干旱 unless you’re in a drought干旱,” he says.