科学美国人60秒 如果北极的海冰融化，加州的树木会燃烧吗？

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If Sea Ice Melts in the Arctic, Do Trees Burn in California?

如果北极的海冰融化，加州的树木会燃烧吗？

Emily Schwing: This is Scientific American’s 60 Second Science. I’m Emily Schwing.

Oil and water. Apples and oranges. Fire and Ice…none of these things really seem like they have much to do with one another…or do they?

艾米丽·施温：这是《科学美国人》的60秒科学。我是艾米丽·施温。

油和水。苹果和桔子。火和冰……所有这些东西似乎都与彼此没有太大关系……或者是吗？

Hailong Wang: We found that more fire-favorable weather associated with declines in the Arctic sea ice during summer can increase autumn wildfires over the western United States.

Schwing: Hailong Wang is an Earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.

王海龙（Hailong Wang）：我们发现，与夏季北极海冰减少相关的更有利的火灾天气会增加美国西部的秋季野火。

王海龙是华盛顿州西北太平洋国家实验室的地球科学家。

Wang: So we analyzed¹ a few decades of observations of how wildfire incidents, sea ice cover and weather conditions to identify a relationship between Arctic sea ice decline and the wildfire risks. We called it a teleconnection.

王：所以我们分析了几十年来对野火事件、海冰覆盖和天气状况的观察，以确定北极海冰减少与野火风险之间的关系。我们称之为遥相关。

Schwing: Wang says this idea of a fire and ice “tele-connection?” … It’s not new. It’s a lot like the so-called “butterfly effect” - a term coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960’s to explain chaos² theory. The idea can be summarized like this: if a butterfly flaps its wings in one location, that could displace enough air to cause a tornado³ or some other large scale atmospheric⁴ storm elsewhere.

施温：王说这种冰火“远程连接”的想法…这不是什么新鲜事。这很像所谓的“蝴蝶效应”——气象学家爱德华·洛伦兹在20世纪60年代创造的一个术语，用来解释混沌理论。这个想法可以总结如下：如果蝴蝶在一个地方拍动翅膀，就会排出足够的空气，在其他地方引发龙卷风或其他大规模大气风暴。

Wang: Certainly didn't invent this concept, but it has been in the atmospheric sciences for a long time. So, because of the connections within the Earth system, especially in the atmosphere, one small change in one region could affect other regions through the atmospheric circulations.

王：当然不是这个概念的发明者，但它在大气科学中已经存在很长时间了。因此，由于地球系统内部的联系，特别是在大气中，一个区域的一个小变化可能会通过大气环流影响其他区域。

Schwing: Connections between declining sea ice and wildfire weather have been made before. Wang says previous findings have relied heavily on statistical⁵ relationships.

Schwing：海冰下降和野火天气之间的联系以前就有过。王说，之前的研究结果在很大程度上依赖于统计关系。

Wang: For example, they find that they found that maybe Arctic sea ice are declining in many years, and they also found the increase in extreme weather like wildfires in the western U.S. They can only identify the relationship, but there's no mechanism⁶ to explain which which one is the cause? Which one is the effect?

王：例如，他们发现北极海冰可能在多年内正在减少，他们还发现美国西部的野火等极端天气也在增加。他们只能确定两者之间的关系，但没有机制来解释哪一种是原因？效果是什么？

Schwing: [possible VO:

Those relationships found a link between a decrease in sea ice and an increase in wildfires in the WEstern US, but they could not explain the cause and effect. ]

Schwing：[可能的VO：

这些关系发现了海冰减少与美国西部野火增加之间的联系，但它们无法解释因果关系。]

So Wang and colleagues took those known statistical relationships a step further. The team applied⁷ them to a state of the art climate model with wildfire prediction capabilities⁸.

因此，王和同事们将这些已知的统计关系又向前推进了一步。该团队将其应用于具有野火预测能力的最先进气候模型。

Wang: In that way, we were able to identify the response of the climate system, including the fire weather over the western U.S. and other responses to the Arctic sea ice.

Schwing: What they found is “a tale of two vortices.”

王：这样，我们就能够确定气候系统的反应，包括美国西部的火灾天气和其他对北极海冰的反应。

他们发现的是“两个漩涡的故事”

Wang: So when the summer sea ice is much reduced, ocean can absorb and store more heat from sunlight. Less sea ice cover over the Arctic will allow more heat to be also to be released from the ocean to the atmosphere in the following autumn and early winter. Otherwise, the sea ice can insulate the heat from the ocean to the air.

王：所以当夏天的海冰大大减少时，海洋可以吸收和储存更多的阳光热量。在接下来的秋季和初冬，北极海冰覆盖的减少也将使更多的热量从海洋释放到大气中。否则，海冰可以将海洋的热量隔绝到空气中。

Schwing: So, more heat is released to the atmosphere as the sea ice declines.

Wang: The anomalous⁹ heat in the Arctic can form rising air from the surface, and that can strengthen the low pressure system, which is one of the the spinning vortex. It’s  counter-clockwise.

所以，随着海冰的减少，更多的热量被释放到大气中。

王：北极异常的高温会从地表形成上升的空气，这会加强低压系统，这是旋转漩涡之一。它是逆时针的。

Schwing: This forms a low pressure system and Wang says when it moves south, it pushes the polar jet stream off its normal course and forms a second vortex.

Schwing：这形成了一个低压系统，Wang说，当它向南移动时，会将极地急流推离正常轨道，形成第二个漩涡。

Wang: So this shift also facilitate[s] the formation of a high pressure system over the western U.S. This high-pressure system is a clockwise spinning vortex. This drives dry and hot hot air to descend¹⁰ to the ground—from the upper air to the ground. Normally it comes with clear skies and no precipitation. So those are all favorable weather conditions for wildfire hazards.

王：所以这种转变也促进了美国西部高压系统的形成。这种高压系统是一个顺时针旋转的漩涡。这会促使干热空气从高空降到地面。通常天气晴朗，没有降水。因此，这些都是野火灾害的有利天气条件。

Schwing: The findings are published in Nature Communications. And Wang says wildfire might not be the only result of declining sea ice. [Yufei Zou et al., Increasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic]

Schwing：研究结果发表在《自然通讯》上。王说，野火可能不是海冰减少的唯一结果。

Wang: The arctic changes could also be connected to extreme cold weather.

Schwing: Like the infamous¹¹ 2021 Texas ice and snow storm that knocked out power to millions and caused billions of dollars in damage. Wang says looking for more “teleconnections’ is where his research will go next.

王：北极的变化也可能与极端寒冷的天气有关。

施温：就像2021臭名昭著的德克萨斯州冰雪风暴一样，这场风暴摧毁了数百万人的电力，造成了数十亿美元的损失。王说，寻找更多的“远程联系”是他的下一步研究方向。

Wang: Moving forward, we would like to explore more connections of Arctic changes to weather, extreme weather, climate change over other regions of the entire globe.

王：接下来，我们想探索北极变化与全球其他地区的天气、极端天气、气候变化之间的更多联系。

Schwing: If wildfires and sea ice could be this climatically entwined, surely there are other climate surprises just waiting to be unraveled.

Schwing：如果野火和海冰能在气候上如此交织在一起，那么肯定还有其他气候惊喜等着解开。

1 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

3 tornado   

n.飓风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• A tornado whirled into the town last week.龙卷风上周袭击了这座城市。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

4 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

5 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

6 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

7 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

8 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

9 anomalous   

adj.反常的；不规则的

参考例句：

• For years this anomalous behaviour has baffled scientists.几年来这种反常行为让科学家们很困惑。
• The mechanism of this anomalous vascular response is unknown.此种不规则的血管反应的机制尚不清楚。

10 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

11 infamous   

adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的

参考例句：

• He was infamous for his anti-feminist attitudes.他因反对女性主义而声名狼藉。
• I was shocked by her infamous behaviour.她的无耻行径令我震惊。