1.Scientists have discovered plant life covering the surface of the world's oceans is disappearing at a dangerous rate. This plant life called phytoplankton is a vital resource that helps absorb the worst of the "greenhouse gases" involved in global warming. Satellites and ships at sea have confirmed the diminishing productivity of the microscopic plants, which oceanographers say is most striking in the waters of the North Pacific—ranging as far up as the high Arctic. "Whether the lost productivity of the phytoplankton is directly due to increased ocean temperatures that have been recorded for at least the past 20 years remains part of an extremely complex puzzle", says Watson W. Gregg, a NASA biologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in the USA, but it surely offers a fresh clue to the controversy over climate change. According to Gregg, the greatest loss of phytoplankton has occurred where ocean temperatures have risen most significantly between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. In the North Atlantic summertime, sea surface temperatures rose about 1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, while in the North Pacific the ocean's surface temperatures rose about 0.07 of a degree.
1、科學家們發(fā)現(xiàn)覆蓋海洋表面的植物數(shù)量正在快速消失。這種被稱為“浮游植物”的生物能夠吸收導致全球變暖的危害的“溫室氣體”。衛(wèi)星和海上船舶確認了這種細微生物正在減少。海洋研究者認為這種生物在北太平洋里的消亡速度最快，甚至擴展到了北極圈。“浮游植物的減少是否是過去的20 年間海洋溫度的升高直接導致的，這依然是一個未解之迷�！痹诿绹腉oddard空間飛行中心的NASA生物學家Watson W.Gregg如是說。但他表示，這確實提供了一個解決氣候變化爭議的全新線索。Gregg認為，從80年代初到90年代末，海洋溫度明顯升高的地方往往是浮游植物大量減少的地方。在北大西洋的夏季，海洋的表面溫度在那段時間里升高了1.3華氏度，在北太平洋海洋表面，溫度升髙了0.07度。
2.While the link between ocean temperatures and the productivity of plankton is striking, other factors can also affect the health of the plants. They need iron as nourishment, for example, and much of it reaches them in powerful winds that sweep iron-containing dust across the oceans from continental deserts. When those winds diminish or fail, plankton can suffer. According to Gregg and his colleagues, there have been small but measurable decreases in the amount of iron deposited over the oceans in recent years.
2、雖然海洋溫度的升高和浮游植物數(shù)量之間的關(guān)系密不可分，但是其他 因素也會影響這種海洋植物的健康。比如說它們需要鐵來當做養(yǎng)料，這種養(yǎng) 料來自于大陸上含鐵的沙塵。大風把這些沙塵吹向海洋，當這些風減弱或者 消亡，浮游植物的生存就會面臨危脅。Gregg和他的同事認為，近年來海洋中 的鐵含量有所下降，盡管幅度較小，但是已經(jīng)能夠通過儀器測量出來。
3.The significant decline in plankton productivity has a direct effect on the world's carbon cycle. Normally, the ocean plants take up about half of all the Carbon dioxide in the world's environment because they use the carbon, along with sunlight, for growth, and release oxygen into the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis. Primary production of plankton in the North Pacific has decreased by more than 9 percent during the past 20 years, and by nearly 7 percent in the North Atlantic, Gregg and his colleagues determined from their satellite observations and shipboard surveys. Studies combining all the major ocean basins of the world have revealed the decline in plankton productivity to be more than 6 percent.
3、浮游植物數(shù)量明顯減少對全球碳循環(huán)有著直接的影響。通常，這種海洋植物吸收了全球大約一半的二氧化碳，因為它們借助二氧化碳以及陽光來生長，并把氧氣釋放到大氣中，這就是我們熟知的光合作用。浮游植物的主要生長區(qū)域是北太平洋，那里的浮游植物數(shù)量在過去的20年里降低了9%以上，在北大西洋降低了約7%,這是Gregg和他的同事利用衛(wèi)星觀察和船舶測量得出的結(jié)論。對世界上主要海洋盆地的研究表明，浮游植物的數(shù)量下降了6%以上。
4.The ocean plankton is a major way in which the extra carbon dioxide emitted in the combustion of fossil fuels is eliminated. Whether caused by currently rising global temperatures or not, the loss of natural plankton productivity in the oceans also means the loss of an important factor in removing much of the principal greenhouse gas that has caused the world's climate to warm for the past century or more. "Our combined research shows that ocean primary productivity is declining, and it may be the result of climate changes such as increased temperatures and decreased iron deposits into parts of the oceans. This has major implications for the global carbon cycle" said Gregg.
4、海洋浮游植物是吸收燃燒化石燃料而排放出的二氧化碳的主要功臣。 無論是否是由于當今氣候變暖造成，海洋浮游植物的減少意味著一個消除溫室氣體的重要元素的消失，而溫室氣體已經(jīng)使得全球氣溫在過去一百多年中不斷升高。Gregg說：“研究表明，海洋浮游植物數(shù)量持續(xù)下降，這有可能是氣候變化的結(jié)果，包括溫度上升以及海洋中鐵含量下降。這對全球碳循環(huán)會有重大影響”。
5.At the same time, Stanford University scientists using two other NASA satellites and one flown by the Defense Department have observed dramatic new changes in the vast ice sheets along the west coast of Antarctica. These changes, in turn, are having a major impact on phytoplankton there. They report that a monster chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf—an iceberg almost 20 miles wide and 124 miles long—has broken off the west face of the shelf and is burying a vast ocean area of phytoplankton that is the base of the food web in an area exceptionally rich in plant and animal marine life.
5、與此同時，斯坦福大學的科學家們使用了另外兩個NASA衛(wèi)星，其中一個是由國防部發(fā)射的。他們觀察到了南極洲西海岸巨大冰層發(fā)生的重大變化，這些變化正對那里的浮游植物產(chǎn)生嚴重影響。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，“羅斯陸緣冰”中的大冰山——一座大約有20英里寬、124英里長的冰山——己經(jīng)從西海岸冰層上脫離，覆蓋了一個有浮游植物生存的巨大海洋區(qū)域。這些浮游植物是食物鏈的基礎(chǔ)，特別是在海洋動物和植物特別豐富的地方。
6.Although sea surface temperatures around Western Antarctica are remaining stable, the loss of plankton is proving catastrophic to all the higher life forms that depend on the plant masses, say Stanford biological oceanographers Arrigo and Van Dijken. Icebergs in Antarctica are designated by letters and numbers for aerial surveys across millions of square miles of the southern ocean, and this berg is known as C-19. "We estimate from satellite observations that C-19 in the Ross Sea has covered 90 percent of all the phytoplankton there" said Arrigo.
6、斯坦福大學的生物學家Arrigo和Van Dijken認為，盡管南極洲西部海洋表面的溫度保持了穩(wěn)定，但是浮游植物的減少對所有依賴這些植物的高等生物群會產(chǎn)生毀滅性影響。整個南極洲的海洋面積達幾百萬平方英里，為了便于開展空中測量，科學家們按照字母和數(shù)字的順序分類排列南極洲的冰山， 因此上述的這塊大冰山被命名為C-19。Arrigo說：“根據(jù)衛(wèi)星觀測,數(shù)據(jù)，我們估計在羅斯海中的C-19已經(jīng)覆蓋了那里90%的浮游植物�！�
7.Huge as it is, the C-19 iceberg is only the second-largest recorded in the Ross Sea region. An even larger one, dubbed B-15, broke off, or "calved" in 2001. Although it also blotted out a large area of floating phytoplankton on the sea surface, it only wiped out about 40 percent of the microscopic plants. Approximately 25 percent of the world's populations of emperor penguins and 30 percent of the Adelie penguins nest in colonies in this area. This amounts to hundreds of thousands of Adelie and emperor penguins all endangered by the huge iceberg, which has been stuck against the coast ever since it broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf last year. Whales, seals and the millions of shrimplike sea creatures called krill are also threatened by the loss of many square miles of phytoplankton.
7、盡管C-19非常龐大，它只是羅斯海區(qū)域中有記錄以來位列第二的冰 山。更大的那座叫B—15，于2001年分裂，或者說被給予了新生。盡管它占 據(jù)了海洋表面浮游植物的一大塊面積，不過只是毀滅了 40%的微生植物群。 世界上大約25%的帝企鵝和30%的阿德烈企鵝在這個海域群體筑巢。這些數(shù)以十萬計的阿德烈企鵝和帝企鵝都會因這個龐大的冰山而面臨滅絕的危險。 這個冰山自從去年從“羅斯陸緣冰”上脫離以來一直被卡在海岸線上。鯨魚、海豹，還有數(shù)百萬只磷蝦都將因為海洋浮游植物的銳減而面臨烕脅。
