文章目录Cambridge IELTS 14Test 2 Section 4The History of Weather ForecastingCambridge IELTS 14Test 2 Section 4The History of Weather ForecastingIn this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I’ll start by examining its early history. That’ll be the subject of today’s talk.Okay, so we’ll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods. And weather catastrohpes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths.Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows. For instance, there’s the Egyption sun god Ra and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning.Many ancient civilizations developed rites such as dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.But the weather was of daily importance. Observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusion from these observations was really important. In fact, their survival depended on it.It isn’t know when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 B.C., the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena.The Chinese also recognized weather patterns, and by 300 B.C., astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. is especially noteworthy as he ideas held sway for nearly 2000 years。In 340 B.C. he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms. He also described celestial phenomenona such as halos, that is, bright circules of light around the sun, the moon bright starts and comets.Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the earch. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.For nearly 2000 years, Aristotle’s work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory. Alongside this, though in the middle ages weather observations were passed on in the form of proverbs, such as red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.在这一系列关于天气预报历史的讲座中我将首先探讨其早期历史。这将是今天讲座的主题。好我们先把时间追溯到几千年前。大多数古代文明都有自己的天气之神。而洪水等天气灾害在许多关于世界起源的神话中都扮演着重要的角色。总的来说人们认为天气变化取决于众神的喜怒无常而不同文化中种类繁多的天气神也正说明了这一点。例如有埃及的太阳神拉Ra还有北欧神话中掌管雷电的神托尔Thor。许多古代文明还发展出了各种仪式比如祭祀舞蹈希望天气之神能够眷顾他们。然而天气对于人们的日常生活至关重要。观察天空并根据这些观察作出正确的判断是一件极其重要的事情。事实上他们的生存就依赖于这一点。目前尚不清楚人类最早是在什么时候开始观测天空的。但大约在公元前650年巴比伦人根据对云层和其他自然现象的观察制作出了世界上最早的短期天气预报。中国人同样也认识到了天气变化的规律。到了公元前300年天文学家已经制定出一种历法将一年划分为二十四个节气每一个节气都对应着一种不同的天气现象。古希腊人则是最早采用更加科学的方法来解释天气现象的文明。公元前4世纪哲学家和科学家亚里士多德的作品特别值得关注因为他的思想主导了近2000年。公元前340年他写了一本书在书中他试图解释雨、云、风和风暴的形成。他还描述了天文现象例如光晕即太阳、月亮和明亮星星周围的光圈以及彗星。他的许多观测结果都惊人地准确。例如他认为热量能使水蒸发。但是他也得出了不少错误的结论比如说风是地球呼出的气。这些错误在文艺复兴之后被纠正了。近两千年以来亚里士多德的著作一直被视为天气理论的权威。