Extreme weather

極端天氣

Greenhouse-gas emissions are increasing the frequency of heatwaves

溫室氣體的排放增加了熱浪出現(xiàn)的頻率

And it will get worse in future

而且將來(lái)會(huì)變得更糟

Jul 25th 2019

EXTREME HEAT is ruinous to productivity, particularly if you are a criminal. Several American police forces posted messages to their social-media accounts last weekend declaring a moratorium on crime. “It is just too hot to be outside committing crimes,” wrote the Park Forest Police Department in Illinois, on its Facebook page. In some cases, it seems to have worked. “We have had zero customers stay the night at our ‘hotel’, so we appreciate all of the criminals adhering to the heat advisory,” tweeted the Malden Police in Massachusetts on Sunday.

酷熱對(duì)工作效率是毀滅性的，尤其是如果你是個(gè)罪犯。上周末，幾名美國(guó)警察在他們的社交媒體賬戶上發(fā)布消息，宣布暫停犯罪活動(dòng)?！疤鞖庋谉幔贿m宜外出犯罪?！币晾Z伊州公園森林警察局在其Facebook頁(yè)面上寫(xiě)道。在某些情況下，它似乎起了作用。馬薩諸塞州馬爾登警方周日在推特上寫(xiě)道:“我們的‘酒店’沒(méi)有客人入住，所以我們感謝所有遵守高溫警告的罪犯?！?/p>

詞匯

Moratorium/暫停，中止

Adherie/堅(jiān)持；依附；粘著

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The messages came as scorching temperatures swept across America, placing more than 100m people under excessive-heat warnings. Temperatures hovered either side of 40°C on the east coast. On July 18th Mitch Petrus, a well-known retired player of American football, died of heatstroke after working outdoors all day. At least five other deaths have been reported.

這些信息發(fā)布之際，美國(guó)各地正經(jīng)歷著酷暑天氣，超過(guò)1億人處于高溫警告之下。東海岸的氣溫徘徊在40°C左右。7月18日，著名的美式足球退役球員米奇·佩特魯斯在戶外工作了一整天后中暑身亡。此外至少5人被報(bào)道死亡。

詞匯

Scorching/灼熱的；激烈的

Hover/盤(pán)旋，翱翔；徘徊

Heatstroke/中暑

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Europeans have also been sweating, for the second time this summer. A month ago, warm air from the Sahara contributed to making it the continent’s hottest June on record. At the top of Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest mountain, instruments recorded 7°C (the normal June temperature would be below freezing). At Gallargues-le-Montueux near N?mes, in France, temperatures peaked at 45.9°C. The previous record anywhere in that country was 1.8°C lower. Linked to these temperatures, in Alaska and Portugal, forest fires are raging.

歐洲人今年夏天第二次流汗。一個(gè)月前，撒哈拉沙漠的暖空氣使其成為歐洲有記錄以來(lái)最熱的六月。在西歐最高峰勃朗峰(Mont Blanc)的山頂，儀器記錄的溫度為7°C(6月的正常溫度將低于冰點(diǎn))。在法國(guó)尼姆附近的Gallargues-le-Montueux，最高氣溫為45.9°C。該國(guó)此前的各處的氣溫記錄比這要低1.8°。受高溫影響，在阿拉斯加和葡萄牙，森林大火正在肆虐。

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If your hunch is that this kind of extreme weather is more common today than it was once-upon-a-time, you are correct. When, in 2003, tens of thousands of people in Europe died prematurely as a result of a two-week heatwave, it was deemed to be a once-in-1,000-years event. Twelve years later, a study led by Nikolaos Christidis of the Hadley Centre, the climate-research division of Britain’s Met Office, found that heatwaves of this severity had become once-in-100-years events, and would be commonplace by the 2040s.

如果你的直覺(jué)是這種極端天氣在今天比以前更常見(jiàn)，那么你是對(duì)的。2003年，一場(chǎng)持續(xù)兩周的熱浪奪去了歐洲數(shù)萬(wàn)人的生命，這被認(rèn)為是一件千年一遇的大事。12年后，英國(guó)氣象局氣候研究部門(mén)哈德利中心(Hadley Centre)的尼古拉?克里斯蒂迪斯(Nikolaos Christidis)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，如此嚴(yán)重的熱浪已成為百年一遇的事件，而到本世紀(jì)40年代這將司空見(jiàn)慣。

詞匯

Hunch/預(yù)感；直覺(jué)

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The question on many people’s minds is whether these changes, and specific events like this week’s temperatures in America and Europe, are caused by greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. For years, the semi-official line was that no single weather event could be blamed on climate change, only trends. That began to change in 2004, with the publication of the first “attribution” study. This focused on the European heatwave of 2003, when average summer temperatures broke through a threshold until then unbreached in 150 years of records. By comparing simulations of a world with and without greenhouse-gas emissions, Peter Stott at the Met Office and his colleagues found that climate change had made the record-breaking heatwave at least twice as likely as it would otherwise have been.

許多人心中的問(wèn)題是，這些變化，以及本周美國(guó)和歐洲的氣溫等具體事件，是否由大氣中溫室氣體的累積造成。多年來(lái)，半官方的說(shuō)法是，沒(méi)有任何單一的天氣事件可以歸咎于氣候變化，而只能歸咎于趨勢(shì)。2004年，隨著第一個(gè)“歸因”研究的發(fā)表，這種情況開(kāi)始改變。這主要集中在2003年的歐洲熱浪上，當(dāng)時(shí)的夏季平均氣溫突破了一個(gè)閾值，直到那時(shí)才打破了150年來(lái)的記錄。英國(guó)氣象局的彼得·斯托特和他的同事們通過(guò)對(duì)一個(gè)有溫室氣體排放和沒(méi)有溫室氣體排放的仿真世界進(jìn)行比較，發(fā)現(xiàn)氣候變化導(dǎo)致破紀(jì)錄的熱浪發(fā)生的可能性至少是正常情況下的兩倍。

詞匯

Threshold/門(mén)檻；開(kāi)始；極限

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Since then, research of this sort, intended to study how climate change is already promoting extreme weather, has grown rapidly. A recent, extended drought in California has been linked to greenhouse-gas emissions, as was the extreme heat southern Europe experienced during the summer of 2017. That event was made at least ten times more likely by climate change according to work published later that year by World Weather Attribution, a collaboration between experts in these sorts of analyses.

從那時(shí)起，這類(lèi)旨在研究氣候變化如何促進(jìn)極端天氣的研究迅速發(fā)展。最近加州持續(xù)的干旱與溫室氣體排放有關(guān)，2017年夏天南歐經(jīng)歷的極度高溫也是如此。根據(jù)一部有關(guān)科研專家對(duì)此類(lèi)氣候研究的雜志《世界天氣歸因》在那年晚些時(shí)候發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究，氣候變化至少使那次事件發(fā)生的可能性增加了十倍。

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Shortening odds

縮短發(fā)生概率【odds這邊不但有概率（尤指事件發(fā)生），還有古怪的的含義】

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Attribution work does not concern itself only with heat. Floods, storms and cold spells also carry a climatic fingerprint. When Hurricane Harvey hit America in August 2017, it stalled over Texas, delivering huge quantities of rain, which caused heavy flooding and more than 80 deaths. On that occasion, World Weather Attribution found that climate change was responsible for intensifying precipitation levels by between 8% and 19%. Since 2012, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published an annual compendium of attribution studies. Roughly 70% of events scrutinised show some influence from climate change.

歸因工作本身并不僅僅與熱有關(guān)。洪水、風(fēng)暴和寒潮也帶有氣候特征。2017年8月，颶風(fēng)“哈維”襲擊美國(guó)時(shí)，在德克薩斯州上空停了下來(lái)，帶來(lái)了大量降雨，導(dǎo)致嚴(yán)重洪災(zāi)，80多人死亡。當(dāng)時(shí)，《世界天氣歸因》發(fā)現(xiàn)，氣候變化導(dǎo)致降水水平增加了8%至19%。自2012年以來(lái)，《美國(guó)氣象學(xué)會(huì)公報(bào)》每年都會(huì)發(fā)布一份歸因研究概要。大約70%的調(diào)查事件顯示了氣候變化的影響。

詞匯

Compendium/綱要；概略

Scrutinize/作仔細(xì)檢查；細(xì)致觀察

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One challenge has been to do the analyses faster. Findings connected with the heatwave of 2003 took a year to appear, by which time public interest had mostly moved on. The goal today is to offer a verdict on the influence of climate change on particular meteorological events more or less as they are happening. Here, the Met Office has been leading the way, with its Dutch, French and German counterparts close behind. But many other places do not have the capacity to carry out the onerous computer-modelling required. As a result, a European Union project planned to start before November will seek to provide contemporaneous weather-attribution analyses for the continent.

其中一個(gè)挑戰(zhàn)是更快地進(jìn)行分析?？蒲腥藛T花了一年的時(shí)間才發(fā)現(xiàn)與2003年那場(chǎng)熱浪相關(guān)因素，到那時(shí)公眾的興趣大多已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)移了。今天的目標(biāo)是就氣候變化對(duì)正在發(fā)生的特定氣象事件的影響或多或少給出一個(gè)結(jié)論。在這方面，英國(guó)氣象局一直處于領(lǐng)先地位，荷蘭、法國(guó)和德國(guó)的氣象局緊隨其后。但是，許多其他地方?jīng)]有能力進(jìn)行所需的繁重的計(jì)算機(jī)建模工作。因此，計(jì)劃在11月之前啟動(dòng)的一個(gè)歐盟項(xiàng)目將尋求為歐洲大陸提供同期天氣歸因分析。

詞匯

Verdict/結(jié)論；裁定

Onerous/ ?繁重的；麻煩的

Contemporaneous/同時(shí)期的；同時(shí)代的，同時(shí)發(fā)生的

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An inadvertent early test of how this could work took place last month, when many of Europe’s attribution scientists gathered at a statistical-climatology meeting in Toulouse, just as the June heatwave hit. Within days they published their conclusions. Accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had made the event at least five times more likely than would otherwise have been the case.

上個(gè)月，就在6月的熱浪來(lái)襲之際，許多歐洲科學(xué)家在圖盧茲參加了一個(gè)統(tǒng)計(jì)氣候?qū)W會(huì)議。幾天后，他們發(fā)表了他們的結(jié)論。大氣中累積的溫室氣體使得這一事件發(fā)生的可能性至少是其他情況下的五倍。

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Such statements help show that the danger posed by climate change is clear and present, not just something for future generations to worry about. Heatwaves, for example, sometimes kill by the thousand—and can cause more casualties than other meteorological extremes, such as floods and hurricanes. But attribution also provides useful guidance to policymakers.

這樣的聲明有助于表明，氣候變化帶來(lái)的危險(xiǎn)是明確而現(xiàn)實(shí)的，而不只是未來(lái)幾代人需要擔(dān)心的問(wèn)題。例如，熱浪有時(shí)會(huì)造成上千人死亡，而且造成的傷亡比其他氣象極端情況(如洪水和颶風(fēng))還要多。但歸因也為決策者提供了有用的指導(dǎo)。

詞匯

Casualty/傷亡；人員傷亡

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For instance, information about how much more likely an event is today than it was 50 or 100 years ago can assist decisions about building and adapting infrastructure. If what were thought of as once-in-a-millennium heatwaves now come once a century and will soon become so frequent as to be normal, then public-health systems need to be designed to cope with an influx of people suffering from heat stress. Likewise, if big floods are more frequent, water-handling systems need to be expanded and flood defences raised. Insurance and reinsurance companies are paying particular attention, because these calculations help them reassess risk levels.

例如，與50年或100年前相比，關(guān)于當(dāng)前事件發(fā)生的可能性有多大的信息，可以幫助做出關(guān)于構(gòu)建和改建基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的決策。如果曾經(jīng)被認(rèn)為是千年一遇的熱浪現(xiàn)在出現(xiàn)在一個(gè)世紀(jì)一次，而且很快就會(huì)變得如此頻繁以至于變得正常，那么公共衛(wèi)生系統(tǒng)需要被設(shè)計(jì)來(lái)應(yīng)對(duì)遭受熱浪而大量人群的涌入情況。同樣，如果大洪水更加頻繁，就需要擴(kuò)大水處理系統(tǒng)，提高防洪能力。保險(xiǎn)公司和再保險(xiǎn)公司對(duì)此特別關(guān)注，因?yàn)檫@些計(jì)算有助于它們重新評(píng)估風(fēng)險(xiǎn)水平。

詞匯

millennium/千年期`

influx/流入；匯集

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Conversely, some people blamed climate change for a drought in south-eastern Brazil in 2014 and 2015, in which water levels in reservoirs around S?o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro fell to between 3% and 5% of capacity. But a study published in 2015 by Friederike Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University found no sign that greenhouse-gas emissions had raised the risk of drought. Dr Otto concluded instead that a quadrupling of S?o Paulo’s population since 1960 had put pressure on scarce water supplies.

相反，一些人將2014年和2015年巴西東南部的干旱歸咎于氣候變化，在那場(chǎng)干旱中，圣保羅和里約熱內(nèi)盧周?chē)畮?kù)的水位降至產(chǎn)能的3%至5%。但牛津大學(xué)環(huán)境變化研究所的弗里德里克·奧托(Friederike Otto)在2015年發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，沒(méi)有跡象表明溫室氣體排放增加了干旱的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。奧托博士的結(jié)論是，自1960年以來(lái)，圣保羅人口增加了四倍，這對(duì)稀缺的水資源供應(yīng)造成了壓力。

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Attribution science is also playing a role in courtrooms and human-rights hearings. A study published in 2015 showed that climate change contributed to the high wind speeds of supertyphoon Haiyan, which blew through the Philippines in 2013, killing more than 6,000 people. Those stronger winds created a much bigger storm surge. The matter was raised during hearings held by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights last year, which sought to explore the question of whether fossil-fuel companies could be held responsible.

歸因科學(xué)也在法庭和人權(quán)聽(tīng)證會(huì)上發(fā)揮作用。2015年發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究顯示，氣候變化是超級(jí)臺(tái)風(fēng)“海燕”(Haiyan)風(fēng)速飛快的原因之一。2013年，臺(tái)風(fēng)“海燕”橫掃菲律賓，造成6000多人死亡。這些強(qiáng)風(fēng)造成了更大的風(fēng)暴潮。菲律賓人權(quán)委員會(huì)(Philippine Commission on Human Rights)去年舉行的聽(tīng)證會(huì)上提出了這個(gè)問(wèn)題。聽(tīng)證會(huì)的目的是探討化石燃料公司是否應(yīng)該對(duì)此負(fù)責(zé)。

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Clear, present and lethal?

明確，現(xiàn)實(shí)和致命?

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Others have sought to pin companies down more specifically. In one widely reported lawsuit, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a Peruvian farmer, is suing RWE, a German energy firm, for contributing to the melting of a mountain glacier that threatens to sweep away his village. Mr Luciano Lliuya’s counsel, Roda Verheyen, has said that the case “was mostly made possible by the advancement of...attribution science”. Lindene Patton, a lawyer with the Earth and Water Law Group, a firm specialising in environmental law, has written that “the science of event attribution may become a driver of litigation, as it shifts understanding of what weather is expected and, relevantly for law, foreseeable.”

其他人則試圖更具體地限制公司。在一場(chǎng)被廣泛報(bào)道的訴訟中，秘魯農(nóng)民索爾·盧西亞諾·柳亞(Saul Luciano Lliuya)起訴德國(guó)能源公司萊茵集團(tuán)(RWE)，原因是后者導(dǎo)致一座高山冰川融化，威脅到他所在的村莊。盧西亞諾?柳亞的律師羅達(dá)?弗海因(Roda Verheyen)表示，此案“主要是由于……歸因科學(xué)的進(jìn)步”。專門(mén)研究環(huán)境法的地球與水法律集團(tuán)的律師Lindene Patton寫(xiě)道，“事件歸因的科學(xué)可能會(huì)成為訴訟的推動(dòng)力，因?yàn)樗淖兞巳藗儗?duì)天氣的預(yù)期，以及與法律相關(guān)的可預(yù)見(jiàn)的理解?！?/p>

詞匯

Litigation/訴訟；起訴

To a layman, however good attribution science has become, trying to use it to link an event in the Peruvian Andes to a particular firm in Germany looks a bit of a stretch. But whether or not Mr Luciano Lliuya wins his case, the fact it is even being heard is a straw in the wind—and a sign that global warming can change metaphorical weather patterns as well as real ones.

對(duì)于一個(gè)門(mén)外漢來(lái)說(shuō)，無(wú)論歸因科學(xué)已經(jīng)變得多么完美，試圖用它來(lái)把秘魯安第斯山脈的一個(gè)事件與德國(guó)的一家特定公司聯(lián)系起來(lái)，看起來(lái)有點(diǎn)牽強(qiáng)。但是，無(wú)論盧西亞諾?柳亞先生是否贏得了這場(chǎng)官司，人們聽(tīng)到這一說(shuō)法都是一種預(yù)兆——這一跡象表明，全球變暖不僅能改變真實(shí)的氣候模式，還能改變隱喻性的氣候模式。

詞匯

Metaphorical/比喻性的，隱喻性的

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