奧地利阿爾卑斯冰川迅速融化

科學(xué)家競相研究奧地利迅速融化的冰川

Scientists are racing to read a rapidly melting archive of climate data going back thousands of years — the inside of Austria’s Alpine glaciers.

科學(xué)家們正在競相閱讀一份關(guān)于氣候數(shù)據(jù)的快速融化的檔案，這些數(shù)據(jù)可以追溯到幾千年前——奧地利阿爾卑斯冰川的內(nèi)部。

Mountain glaciers are receding the world over as average global temperatures rise — a phenomenon that will be described in detail in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week.

隨著全球平均氣溫的上升，全球的高山冰川正在消退，政府間氣候變化專門委員會本周的一份報(bào)告將詳細(xì)描述這一現(xiàn)象。

Glaciers in Austria, on the eastern edge of the Alps, are particularly sensitive to climate change and have been shrinking even more rapidly than most, making it all the more urgent to examine their contents before they disappear, said Andrea Fischer, a scientist conducting the work.

負(fù)責(zé)這項(xiàng)工作的科學(xué)家安德烈亞·費(fèi)舍爾說，位于阿爾卑斯山東部邊緣的奧地利冰川對氣候變化特別敏感，其萎縮速度甚至比大多數(shù)冰川都要快，因此在冰川消失前對其內(nèi)容物進(jìn)行檢查就變得更加緊迫。

“We are now roughly at 1920. The rest has already been lost — everything from 1920 until now,” Fischer, of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research in Innsbruck, said of her work seeking Austria’s oldest ice at the top of the Weissseespitze, a peak more than 3,500 meters (2.2 miles) high.

“我們現(xiàn)在大約相當(dāng)于在1920年。其余從1920年到現(xiàn)在的一切，都已經(jīng)消失了。”因斯布魯克跨學(xué)科山地研究所的菲舍爾在談到她在魏斯匹茲山頂尋找奧地利最古老的冰時說，魏斯匹茲山頂是一座海拔超過3500米(2.2英里)的山峰。

“In the next two years we will lose another 70 years (of ice and data),” she added, describing ice at the top of the glacier.

“在接下來的兩年里，我們將再失去70年(冰和數(shù)據(jù))。”她在描述冰川頂部的冰時說。

At the top of this mountain, Fischer and her colleagues have drilled to the bottom of the comparatively undisturbed glacier to extract samples of its ice, which is being analyzed for information on the local climate thousands of years ago.

在這座山的山頂，費(fèi)舍爾和她的同事們鉆到了相對未受干擾的冰川的底部，以提取其冰的樣本，這些樣本正在進(jìn)行分析，以獲取數(shù)千年前當(dāng)?shù)貧夂虻男畔ⅰ?/p>

Fischer, whose work has contributed to the IPCC report, believes the ice could be 3,000 to 5,000 years old. Her samples are going through lab testing to date them.

費(fèi)舍爾的工作為ipcc的報(bào)告做出了貢獻(xiàn)，他認(rèn)為冰層可能有3000到5000年的歷史。她的樣品正在實(shí)驗(yàn)室進(jìn)行檢測以確定具體日期。

The lower layers are more densely packed than those at the top, meaning that one meter of ice could include thousands of years of data.

較低的冰層比最高的冰層更密集，這意味著一米的冰層可能包含數(shù)千年的數(shù)據(jù)。

“The ice is only a few meters thick. In a few years, this summit will be completely ice-free,” she said.

“冰只有幾米厚。再過幾年，將完全無冰。”

While analysis of other materials, such as tree trunks, can provide information on the air temperature in summer, glaciers’ ice is a rare source of information on precipitation, she said.

她說，雖然對樹干等其他材料的分析可以提供夏季氣溫的信息，但冰川冰是降水信息的罕見來源。

And much of it will soon be lost.

而其中大部分，很快就會消失。