【推荐1】For the past weeks, melting snow and heavy spring rains have caused the Missouri River to rise above normal levels, flooding parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and South Dakota. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes to escape the flood.

The Missouri River is the second longest river in the United States. It is the longest river that feeds into the Mississippi River. Residents(居民)in areas along the Missouri River have been building temporary levees(堤)along the river. They hope that the levees will prevent the river water from overflowing. On Monday morning, however, several levees in northern Missouri broke.

Because of the broken levees, the Missouri River came close to forcing the shutdown of nuclear power plant(核电站)in Brownville, Nebraska. There, the river rose to 900.5 feet. If it rose 18 more inches, officials would have been forced to close the plant for safety reasons. This nuclear plant had been preparing for possible flooding since May 30th. Workers used over 5,000 tons of sand to construct barricades around the plant. Luckily, the river stopped rising in time and the plant remains open. “We knew the river was going to rise for some time,” Nebraska Public Power District spokesman Mark Becker said. “It was just a matter of when.”

Engineers and weather forecasters predict that the river will rise as much as five to seven feet above flood level in Nebraska and Iowa and up to ten feet above the level in Missouri. They think the river will stay high until August. The U.S. government has agreed to give $1 billion in emergency money to repair broken levees and areas damaged by the flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

【推荐2】Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere. These rivers in the sky can transport 15 times the volume of the Mississippi River. When that moisture reaches the coast and moves inland, it rises over the mountains, bringing rain and snow. Many fire-weary people welcome the water, but atmospheric rivers can cause other disasters, such as extreme flooding and debris flows.

On Feb. 27, 2019, an atmospheric river occurred. Just north of San Francisco Bay, in Sonoma County’s famed wine country, the storm brought over 21 inches of rain. For the fifth time in four decades, the town of Guerneville was flooded. Damages in the town alone were estimated at more than $100 million.

Events like these have drawn attention in recent years, but atmospheric rivers are not new. They have run through the sky for millions of years. And researchers have known for some time that flooding due to atmospheric rivers could cost a lot of money, but until our study no one had quantified these damages.

We found that atmospheric rivers caused an average of $1.1 billion in flood damages yearly in the western U.S. More than 80 percent of all flooding damages in the West in the years we studied were associated with atmospheric rivers. In some areas, such as coastal northern California, these systems caused more than 99 percent of damages.

And several published studies have modeled how atmospheric rivers will change in the coming decades. The process is simple: Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, warming the planet. This causes more water to evaporate from oceans and lakes, and increased moisture in the air makes storm systems grow stronger. Like hurricanes, atmospheric rivers are projected to grow longer, wider and wetter in a warming climate.

Therefore, I believe that improving atmospheric forecasting systems should be a priority for adapting to a changing climate. Better understanding of atmospheric rivers can provide valuable information to residents and emergency responders. It also is important to discourage new construction in high-risk areas and help people move to safer locations after major disasters, rather than rebuilding in place. Finally, our study underlines the need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, with which these storms will keep coming, and getting stronger.

【推荐3】As a photographer, I left my hotel room on Thursday excited to record Tokyo.

I had just left the Tokyo Metro system, four floors under Shinjuku Station. Thousands of people stayed at train platforms (站台) and around the shops. It was around 3 p.m. I was lined up at the Bullet Train ticket counter to get some information about a trip to Nagoya tomorrow.

It was then that I felt the ground move under me slightly (轻微地). I took no notice of it at first, as did everyone around me. Then, seconds later, things started falling to the ground. I looked at an elderly man next to me. He smiled back at me and said one word:“Earthquake.”

I ran for the door, about 60 feet away. The ground was shaking so strongly that it was difficult to run in a straight line. My body was shaking when I reached the street. I still remembered the World Trade Center falling to the ground.

I turned to look at the building that I had just run out of; it was shaking uncontrollably. You could still hear the ground shaking as thousands of people evacuated the buildings. I started to take photos of everything that was happening.

I would find out later that afternoon that the quake was a magnitude (震级) of 8.9. Some people were shaken. There were a few women crying, but many others appeared calm and relaxed.

Making my way back to my hotel was a long and unforgettable journey. The rail system in Tokyo was completely shut down and millions were trying to make their way home on foot. The traffic came to a standstill on the streets, but I didn’t learn how catastrophic (灾难的) the event had actually been until I got to my hotel and turned on the news.

This earthquake will be forever burned in my mind as the most fearful experience of all.