Welcome to the climate emergency: you’re about 20 years late

Welcome to the climate emergency: you’re about 20 years late

说气候危机：我们晚了20年

Everywhere you look right now, the Earth’s climate system seems to be breaking records. To choose the most inappropriate metaphor possible, February 2016 would have been enough to bring a lot of climate watchers out in a cold sweat. Figures from Nasa using thermometers and ocean temperature readings showed February was the hottest month on record, by quite a margin.

举目四望，地球的气候系统变化屡破纪录。打个不恰当的比喻，2016年2月的气候大会足以令那些气候专家出一身冷汗。美国宇航局的温度和海洋读数数据显示：今年的二月是有记录以来最热的，并且上涨的幅度较大。

According to satellite data, the amount of Arctic sea ice also hit an all-time low for this time of year since measurements began in 1979.

根据卫星数据，这个时间北极海冰的数量也创了从1979年有记录以来的新低。

Scientists also use satellite data to calculate air temperatures. Climate science contrarians and denialists like these readings because they have not shown as much warming as the more reliable readings on the surface.

科学家们也用用卫星数据来计算空气温度，这些读数让气候科学异见者们欣慰，因为在空气中检测到的温度上升程度低于到地表，但实际上地表的读数更加准确。

But February also set a new record for global temperatures from satellites. These heat records have been variously described as “terrifying”, “jawdropping” and “shocking”.

二月的气候大会上，卫星数据显示全球温度数据创了一个新纪录。这个纪录被广泛的认为是“恐怖的”“骇人听闻的”和“让人震惊”的。

One climate scientist in particular, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, appeared to capture the mood with a quote repeated in stories around the world, including here on the Guardian.“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” said Rahmstorf, of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

有一个来自于德国波茨坦气候研究所的气候学家Stefan Rahmstorf教授用在世界范围内被重复提起的，同时今天也被“卫报”引用的一个词来概括这种情绪：“我们现在正处于气候危机中”。

But here’s the rub.To climate scientists like Rahmstorf, the temperature records being broken right now are not a surprise and, at least according to Rahmstorf, they shouldn’t be seen as an entry point to some terrifying new era (at least not as terrifying as things already are).

对于像Rahmstorf这样的气候学家来说，最高气温的纪录被打破并不意外，至少不能被看作是一个可怕的新时代的开始（至少并不比现在可怕）

“The media’s view is too short-term,” he told me. “As scientists we want to keep an overview of all the data and the knowledge of how the whole system works.”

教授说：“媒体的眼光太短浅，作为科学家我们会综合所有的数据以及整个系统运转的相关知识再做出结论”

What we are seeing is a continuous process of global warming that is superimposed on to the natural variability.

我们现在看到的全球持续变暖的过程是叠加在自然界的多变性上的。

Just like a few cooler years were no reason to talk about a ‘slowdown’ in global warming, it would be wrong to conclude now that a few very hot years are acceleration. Global warming is proceeding pretty much exactly as predicted.

正如某些更冷的年份不能被当作是气候变暖的减慢一样，现在下结论说更热的年份会加速到来也是错误的。全球变暖正如预期一样的慢慢推进。

The fact that temperatures have now shot up again shows that those people who said global warming had stopped were wrong – we said all along that was nonsense.

温度极速上涨的事实向那些曾怀疑全球变暖已停止的人们证明了他们是错误的，我们一直都在强调那种观点毫无意义。

It is becoming more and more urgent. Time has almost run out to get emissions down. That’s the real emergency.

情况将变得越来越急迫。可以留给减排的时间越来越短了，这才是真正的危机。

Rahmstorf does think there is a climate emergency, but he would have made the same assessment at any point in time stretching back many years. The record-breaking February doesn’t change that.

Rahmstorf认为确实存在气候危机，但是这个判断在过去的很多年当中的任何一个点都可以被做出。今年二月的温度破纪录也不能改变这个事实。

CO2 is still building up.The vast majority of the extra carbon dioxide and heat being added into the Earth’s biosphere ends up in the oceans, where heat has been building up since the early 1970s.

二氧化碳量仍在上涨，排放到地球生物圈的大部分多余的二氧化碳和热量最终都被海洋吸收，自20世纪70年代开始那里的温度就一直在升高。

What the ocean doesn’t take up, is left to accumulate in the atmosphere.There are two long-term records of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, measures as parts of CO2 per million parts of the atmosphere (ppm).

当海洋无法容纳时，它们就在大气中积累。关于大气中的二氧化碳总量有两个长期的纪录，测量大气中的二氧化碳百万分率（ppm）

Instruments at Mauna Loa in Hawaii have been showing the accumulation of CO2 since the 1950s. Last year though saw the biggest jump ever since records started. CO2 is now above 400ppm there.

其中之一是位于夏威夷莫纳罗，显示二氧化碳从20世纪50年代就开始积累。去年那里观测到有记录以来的二氧化碳量的最快的飞涨，现在的量是400ppm。

Australia holds the other long-term record of CO2 in the atmosphere – taken at the aptly-named Cape Grim, in Tasmania. Here, the very latest readings for February 2016 show CO2 at 398.71ppm. At some point in the coming months, the Cape Grim data will also tip above 400 ppm.

另一个长期纪录是在澳大利亚，位于塔斯马尼亚岛的格津角。那里2016年2月的最新纪录是398.71ppm.在未来的几个月中的某个时间，这个纪录也将会跃超400ppm。

If you want records, then these readings in Hawaii and Tasmania have been breaking them pretty much year on year for decades. According to the Geological Society, there is no known precedent in the history of the Earth for the rate at which we are now liberating CO2, chiefly from burning fossil fuels.

如果说到破纪录，这些在夏威夷和塔斯马尼亚的数据近几十年来都在破着它们自己的纪录。根据地质协会的说法，目前我们正以史无前例的速度在排放二氧化碳，它们主要来自于化石燃料燃烧。

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has also been sending out warnings since the 1990s.

联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会自90年代起也就在发出警告。

Denial shift?Since the early 1990s, there has also been an industry driven by ideologies and fossil fuel interests to convince the public and policy-makers that there is no climate emergency, that global warming might not be happening and, if it is, that it might not be caused by humans.

从90年代早期开始，被理想主义者和化石燃料受益者推动的产业也曾像公众和决策者鼓吹并没有气候危机，即使也许有全球变暖，那也可能不是由人类引起的。

Recent studies suggest that the “thinktanks” central to this effort continue to challenge the science using their suite of fake experts and cherry-picked pseudo-science.

最近的研究表明，其中最中心的力量是“智库”用他们一群伪专家和精心挑选的伪科学挑战着气候科学。

But there was another chunk of data released in Australia this week suggesting the Australian public might be getting the message that not only is it getting bloody warm out there, but that human activity is behind it.

这个礼拜在澳大利亚的最新数据可以向公众说明，气候不仅在变热，并且人类的活动是它的起因。

For seven years, the polling and communications agency Essential Media Communications has been asking Australians about their views on climate change. EMC has asked the public if they think there is “fairly conclusive evidence” that climate change is happening and – more to the point – that it is caused by humans, or if they think it’s all just a “normal fluctuation”.

7年间，投票和咨询机构EMC就询问过澳大利亚民众他们对于气候变化的看法。EMC问他们觉得气候变化，以及将之归咎于人类是否有着确凿的证据，或者是他们认为这仅仅是一种常规的波动。

This week, the level of acceptance that climate change is happening and is human caused hit an all-time high of 63% in the EMC poll.

本周，在EMC的调查中，63%的群众接受了全球变暖正在进行，并且是因为人类活动的原因，这个比例也是史上最高的。

完成阅读

来源:The Guardian爱语吧作者:Roy