類似澳大利亞的野火，在未來或許會成為一種“常態(tài)”

Australia is no stranger to wildfires. The country’s weather patterns create heat and dryness, which fuel occasional bushfires in a natural cycle. However, one that started last September continues to burn, and it may not be natural at all. So far，the fire has burned 7.3 million hectares (73,000 square kilometers) of land, killing at least 28 people and destroying more than 3,000 homes in the process, reported the Telegraph. Scientists say that man-made climate change has played a role in the fire’s creation and duration.

森林大火在澳大利亞并不少見。該國氣候干熱，在自然環(huán)境下易偶發(fā)山火。但去年9月發(fā)生的大火至今仍未撲滅，這或許并非自然原因。據(jù)《電訊報》報道，到目前為止，這場大火期間已燒毀了730萬公頃(約7.3萬平方公里)的土地，造成至少28人喪生，3000多所房屋被毀。科學(xué)家們認(rèn)為，人為的氣候變化影響了這場大火的產(chǎn)生和持續(xù)時間。

“What we have are fires that might have occurred anyway,” Peter Gleick, a US climate scientist, told Time. “But the extent, the severity, the intensity of these fires is far worse than it otherwise would have been without the fingerprints of climate change.”

“無論如何，我們或許都會面臨火災(zāi)，”美國氣候科學(xué)家彼得·格萊克在接受《時代周刊》采訪時表示。“但在氣候變化的影響下，這些火災(zāi)的程度、嚴(yán)重性和強(qiáng)度變得更糟糕了。”

According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, the country’s temperatures have risen by more than one degree Celsius since 1920. The spring of 2019 was Australia’s driest in 120 years. In December, the country saw its hottest day ever, with an average temperature of 41.9 C.

澳大利亞氣象局的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，自1920年以來，該國氣溫已經(jīng)上升了超過1攝氏度。2019年的春天是澳大利亞120年來最干旱的一個春天。去年12月，這個國家又經(jīng)歷了有史以來最熱的一天，平均氣溫為41.9攝氏度。

“Due to enhanced evaporation in warmer temperatures, the vegetation and the soils dry out more quickly,” Stefan Rahmstorf, a lead author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, told Time.

“由于氣溫升高加劇蒸發(fā)，植被與土壤干燥得更快了，” 聯(lián)合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會第四次評估報告的主要作者斯蒂芬·拉姆斯托夫在接受《時代周刊》采訪時如此說道。

Worse still, researchers at the UK Bureau of Meteorology believe that wildfires like this might become “normal conditions” in the future, according to the BBC. They looked at 57 research papers published since 2013, which examined the relationship between climate change and the risk of wildfires. They found that the link between the two has already been observed in many parts of the world, including the western US, Canada, southern Europe, and even Scandinavia and Siberia.

更糟糕的是，據(jù)英國廣播公司報道，英國氣象局的研究人員認(rèn)為，類似的野火在未來或許會成為一種“常態(tài)”。研究人員查閱了2013年以來發(fā)表的57篇研究氣候變化與野火風(fēng)險之間關(guān)系的論文。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，美國西部、加拿大、歐洲南部，甚至斯堪的納維亞半島以及西伯利亞等全球多地都已經(jīng)對這兩者之間的關(guān)系進(jìn)行了觀察。

“These are impacts we are seeing for one degree of global climate change. The impact will get worse if we don’t do what it takes to stabilize the world’s climate,” Corinne Le Quere, a professor from the University of East Anglia in the UK, told the BBC. “What we are seeing in Australia is not the ‘new normal’. It’s a transition to worse impacts.”

“全球氣候變化相差1度便產(chǎn)生了我們所看到的這些影響。如果我們不采取行動穩(wěn)定全球氣候，情況會變得更糟，”英國東安格利亞大學(xué)教授科琳·勒·奎爾在接受英國廣播公司采訪時表示。“我們在澳大利亞所看到的情況并非‘新常態(tài)’，而是過渡期，以后影響會更糟糕。”