IELTS Listening · Cam 14

Test 2 Part 4

In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I'll start by examining its early history.

Level: C1 · 146 sentences

Transcript

In 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.
OK, so we'll start by going back thousands of years.
Most ancient cultures had weather gods.
And weather catastrophes, 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 Egyptian 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 conclusions from these observations was really important.
In fact, their survival depended on it.
It isn't known when people first started to observe the skies,
but at around 650 BC the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts,
based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena.
The Chinese also recognised weather patterns and by 300 BC 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
BC is especially noteworthy as his ideas held sway for nearly 2,000 years.
In 340 BC, he wrote a book in which he attempted
to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms.
He also described celestial phenomena such as halos,
that is, bright circles of light around the sun,
the moon and bright stars, 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 earth.
Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.
For nearly 2,000 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.
Many of these are based on very good observations and are accurate.
as contemporary meteorologists have discovered.
For centuries, any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observations.
But in the 15th century, scientists began to see the need for instruments.
Until then, the only ones available were weather vanes to determine the wind direction and early versions of rain gauges.
One of the first, invented in the 15th century, was a hygrometer, which measured humidity.
This was one of many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting.
In 1592, the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world's first thermometer.
His student Torricelli later invented the barometer,
which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure.
In 1648, the French philosopher Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude.
This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 1686,
and Halley was also the first person to map trade winds.
This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its processes better
and they started collecting weather observation data systematically in the 18th century
the scientist and politician benjamin franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular
but he was also very interested in weather and studied it throughout most of his life It was Franklin
who discovered that storms generally travel from west to east.
In addition to new meteorological instruments, other developments contributed to our understanding of the atmosphere.
People in different locations began to keep records, and in the mid-19th century,
the invention of the telegraph made it possible for these records to be collated.
This led...
by the end of the 19th century, to the first weather services.
It was not until the early 20th century that mathematics and physics
became part of meteorology, and we'll continue from that point next week.
Hello, Flanders Conference Hotel.
Oh, hi.
I wanted to ask about conference facilities at the hotel.
Have I come through to the right person?
Mm-hmm, you have.
I'm the Customer Services Manager.
My name's Angela.
So, how can I help you?
Well, I'm calling from Barrett Stansons.
We're a medical company based in Perth.
Oh, yes?
And we're organising a conference for our clients to be held in Sydney.
It'll be held over two days and we're expecting about 50 or 60 people.
When were you thinking of having it?
Sometime early next year, like the end of January.
It'd have to be a weekend.
Ah, let me see.
Our conference facilities are already booked for the weekend beginning January the 28th.
We could do the first weekend in February.
How about January the 21st?
Ah, I'm afraid that's book two.
Well, let's go for the February date then.
So, that's the weekend beginning the 4th.
Okay.
Now, can you tell me a bit about what conference facilities you have?
Sure.
So, for talks and presentations, we have the Tesla Room.
Sorry?
Tesla.
That's spelled T-E-S-L-A.
It holds up to 100 people and it's fully equipped with a projector and so on.
How about a microphone?
Yes, that'll be all set up ready for you.
And there'll be one that members of the audience can use too for questions if necessary.
Fine.
And we'll also need some sort of open area
where people can sit and have a cup of coffee.
And we'd like to have an exhibition of our products and services there as well,
so that'll need to be quite a big space.
Mm-hmm, that's fine.
There's a central atrium with all those facilities, and you can come
before the conference starts if you want to set everything up.
Great.
And I presume there's Wi-Fi?
Oh, yes.
That's free and available throughout the hotel.
Okay.
Would you also like us to provide a buffet lunch?
We can do a two-course meal with a number of different options.
What sort of price are we looking at for that?
Well, I can send you a copy of the standard menu.
That's $45 per person.
Or you can have the special for $25 more.
I think the standard should be okay,
but yes, send me the menu.
Now, we're also going to need accommodation on the Saturday night for some of the participants.
I'm not sure how many, but probably about 25.
So what do you charge for a room?
Well, for conference attendees, we have a 25% reduction.
So we can offer you rooms at $135.
Normally a standard room's $180.
And does that include breakfast?
Sure.
And of course, guests can also make use of all the other facilities at the hotel.
So we've got a spa where you can get massages and facials and so on.
And there's a pool up on the roof for the use of guests.
Oh, great.
Now, what about transport links?
The hotel's downtown, isn't it?
Yes.
It's about 12 kilometres from the airport,
but there's a complimentary shuttle bus for guests, and it's only about 10 minutes' walk from the central railway station.
OK.
Now, I don't know Sydney very well.
Can you just give me an idea of the location of the hotel?
Ah, well, it's downtown on Wilby Street.
That's quite a small street, and it's not very far from the sea.
And, of course, if the conference attendees want to go out on their Saturday evening,
there's a huge choice of places to eat.
Then, if they want to make a night of it,
they can go on to one of the clubs in the area.
There are a great many to choose from.
Okay.
So, if we go ahead with this, can you give me some information about how much we're looking at?