Measuring the Effects of Climate Change Policies
07/10/2013
Los Angeles is often covered in thick haze. Scientists are studying this and other cities to understand the effects of climate change policies. File photo from 2009.
Welcome again, to the daily magazine show, As It Is, from VOA Learning English. I’m Mario Ritter. Today, we hear about an unusual artist who decorates prosthetic limbs. We have a story about the lasting appeal of superheroes, just as the latest Superman appears in theaters. But first, we learn about the Megacities Carbon Project, an effort to understand the effects of climate change policies.
Scientists have been able to measure air quality and study its effect on human health for many years. Now, as part of a complex project called the Megacities Carbon Project, scientists are testing new ways to measure gases linked to climate change.
Los Angeles is one of the cities scientists are studying in the project. With a population of 18 million people and many cars, the city is often covered in smog and pollution. Stan Sander is a senior research scientist at the United States space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles. He describes these layers of visible air, or haze, in this way.
“That haze is caused by the fact that the air is trapped inside a layer that’s a few hundred meters to a thousand meters in altitude above the LA basin. So it collects those emissions from the cars and other sources and forms that layer.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25