On September 8th Kim Jong Un, the North’s dictator, assembled his top brass to review the damage a week earlier from the second of the typhoons, Maysak, which destroyed 2,000 homes and washed away 60km of roads and 57 bridges. As the meeting took place, the third, Haishen, was sweeping inland. Although it had weakened before it made landfall, Haishen was the first “supertyphoon” of the season. It packed sustained winds of 135 knots (250kph).
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9月8日，朝鲜独裁者金正恩召集朝鲜高层去审查一周之前的第二次台风“美莎克”造成的损失，这次台风摧毁了两千座房屋，冲毁了60公里的道路和57座桥梁。就在金正恩举行相关会议时，第三次台风“海神”纵贯朝鲜内陆。尽管台风“海神”在登陆前已经减弱，但它还是本季第一个“超级台风”。它的风速持续达到135节（合每小时250公里）。

Most of the western Pacific, the world’s biggest typhoon factory, has actually seen unusually few this season. Meteorologists had predicted that. Thanks to a regular rhythm in the climate known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, their models said tradewinds in lower latitudes would be stronger than usual, making it harder for typhoons to form.
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尽管西太平洋地区是世界上最大的台风工厂，但实际上，这个季节的台风并不多见。气象学家预测到了这一点。由于厄尔尼诺-南方涛动气候的周期固定，气候模型表明，低纬度地区的信风将比平时更强，使台风更难形成。

Yet something man-made may be at work farther north. A facet of global warming is that the tropics are expanding. That may account for increased monsoon flooding and a shift north in the intensity of typhoons. Surface temperatures in a huge patch of ocean south of Japan have been at record highs. The heat gives strength to the typhoons passing over. As Maysak unwound, the energy it dumped into the jet stream may have contributed to savage swings from hot to cold in western America.
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然而有些由人为原因引发的气候可能会在更远的北方发挥作用。全球变暖体现的一个方面是热带地区正在扩张。由此可能引发了雨季洪水增多和台风强度北移的现象。日本南部一大片海域的表面温度一直处于历史最高水平。高温为经过的台风赋予了力量。随着台风“美莎克”的平息，它注入急流中的能量可能导致了美国西部从热到冷的剧烈震荡。

Japan and South Korea grew rich by pouring concrete. Construction—dams, levees, pumping stations—still delights planners confronting threats from the weather. A shrine for the world’s disaster experts is a cathedral-like cistern under Tokyo, a 6.3km-network of tunnels and tanks supported by 500-tonne columns.
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日本和韩国靠浇注混凝土致富。尽管规划者面临着气候威胁，但他们还是为水坝、堤坝和泵站的建设而感到高兴。对于世界灾难学家，位于东京地下的一个类似神庙的蓄水池就是圣地，这个6.3km长的地下通道和水罐网络，由500吨重的柱子支撑着。

注释
1.thanks to 幸亏，归因于

Thanks to that job I became an avid reader.

多亏了那份工作我才成了一个喜欢阅读的人

2.at work 起作用，工作中

It is important to understand the powerful economic and social forces at work behind our own actions.

重要的是，要理解在我们自身行动背后起作用的强大的经济和社会力量。