It was a striking sight: a huge iceberg looming over a tiny Arctic village. Ice is ubiquitous along Greenland's coast, but this giant has put the inhabitants of the village, Innaarsuit, population 169, on edge.
Locals fear that a chunk of the iceberg might tumble into the ocean and unleash an enormous wave on the settlement. Big icebergs don’t always melt politely into the ocean. They tend to break apart in a spectacular fashion. “It’s not a peaceful process, ” said Joerg Schaefer, a climate researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The iceberg is the biggest the villagers have seen, a member of the local council told Greenland's national radio. Satellite data indicated that it measured roughly 650 feet wide, rose almost 300 feet into the air and weighed up to 11 million tons, an expert from the Danish Meteorological Institute told DR, the Danish broadcaster.
Officials hoped that southerly winds and high tides would lift the iceberg and carry it away from the village.
Greenland's ice sheet is losing ice at an alarming pace, and the number of icebergs released into the ocean is expected to increase, at least over the coming decades, Schaefer said.
————— 文章来源 / 纽约时报
loom/luːm/
v. 令人惊恐地隐现
e.g.
A ghost ship loomed out of the fog.
War is looming.
stunning/ˈstʌnɪŋ/
adj. 极有魅力的；绝妙的
striking/ˈstraɪkɪŋ/
adj. 令人惊奇万分的
ubiquitous/juːˈbɪkwɪtəs/
adj. 似乎无所不在的；十分普遍的
e.g.
Wifi is now ubiquitous on campus.
tumble/ˈtʌmbl/
v. 摔倒；跌落
unleash/ʌnˈliːʃ/
v. 发泄；释放
fashion/ˈfæʃn/
n. （做事的）方式；方法
e.g.
Please exit in an orderly fashion.
Leopard print is in fashion this year.
meteorological/ˌmiːtiərəˈlɑːdʒɪkl/
adj. 气象学的
southerly/ˈsʌðərli/
adj. 从南方（吹）来的
hit the road
出发；上路
e.g.
Let's get packed and hit the road!
put ... on edge
使某人紧张不安
