櫻花之殤

陜西 李海運(yùn)

今年日本的櫻花開(kāi)得比往年都要早，是日本1,200多年來(lái)最早的一次。 專家指出，櫻花開(kāi)得越來(lái)越早，預(yù)示著氣候危機(jī)和生態(tài)危機(jī)會(huì)越來(lái)越嚴(yán)重。

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1Think of Japan in the spring and the image that comes to mind is likely the country's famous cherry blossom, also known as “Sakura”—a kind of white and pink flowers, blooming across cities and mountains.

2The flowers, which experience a “peak bloom” that only lasts a few days, have been loved in Japan for more than a thousand years. Crowds celebrate with viewing parties, flocking to the most popular locations to take photos and have picnics underneath the branches.

3But this year, cherry blossom season has come and gone in the blink of an eye, in one of the earliest blooms on record. Scientists warn it's a symptom of the larger climate crisis threatening ecosystems everywhere.

4Yasuyuki Aono, a researcher at Osaka Prefecture University, has gathered records from Kyoto back to 812 AD from historical documents and diaries. In the central city of Kyoto, cherry blossom peaked on March 26, the earliest in more than 1,200 years, Aono said. And in the capital Tokyo, cherry blossom reached full bloom on March 22, the second-earliest date on record.

5The peak bloom dates shift every year, depending on numerous factors including weather and rainfall, but it has shown a general trend of moving earlier and earlier. In Kyoto, the peak date stayed around mid-April for centuries, but began moving into early April during the 1800s. The date has only dipped into late March a handful of times in recorded history.

6“Sakura blooms are very temperature-sensitive,” said Aono. “Flowering and full bloom could be earlier or later depending on the temperature alone,” he said. “The temperature was low in the 1820s,but it has risen by about 3.5 degrees Celsius to this day.”

7This year's seasons in particular influenced the blossom dates, he added. The winter was very cold, but the spring came fast and unusually warm.

Reading Check

Language Study

Ⅰ. Analyze difficult structure in the text

Scientists warn it's a symptom of the larger climate crisis threatening ecosystems everywhere. 科學(xué)家們警告說(shuō)，這是威脅到各地生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的更大氣候危機(jī)的一個(gè)征兆。

【點(diǎn)石成金】本句中，it's a symptom of the larger climate crisis threatening ecosystems everywhere是省略了that的賓語(yǔ)從句；threatening ecosystems everywhere為現(xiàn)在分詞短語(yǔ)作后置定語(yǔ)，修飾名詞crisis。

Ⅱ. Memorize text-centered chunks

come to mind 想起來(lái)

be known as 以……而聞名

in the blink of an eye 一眨眼；很快

depend on 依賴于；取決于

dip into 浸泡；浸入

in the 1820s 在19世紀(jì)20年代

rise by 上升了……

in particular 特別；尤其