澳大利亚的森林大火摧毁了该国五分之一的森林

澳大利亚的森林大火摧毁了该国五分之一的森林

The unprecedented blazes that swept through Australia during the nation’s summer months were so aggressive they destroyed about a fifth of the nation’s forests. The fires have been linked to climate change, as long-term droughts caused by global warming created the perfect environment for flames to burn.

今年夏天，澳大利亚发生了史无前例的大火，烧毁了全国五分之一的森林。火灾与气候变化有关，因为全球变暖导致的长期干旱为火焰的燃烧创造了完美的环境。

In recent months, scientists have been trying to gauge the exact extent of the wildfires and identify why they were so extreme. Some of their findings have now been reported in a special edition of Nature Climate Change.

近几个月来，科学家们一直在试图测量野火的确切范围，并找出它们如此极端的原因。他们的一些发现已经发表在《自然气候变化》的特别版上。

Rachel Baxter

One study found that 5.8 million hectares (14.3 million acres) of broadleaf forest were decimated between September 2019 and January 2020 in the hardest-hit states of Victoria and New South Wales, accounting for 21 percent of Australia’s entire forested area. Most of the time, the amount of Australian forest lost to annual wildfires is just 2 percent of the total. The researchers believe they have underestimated the 2019/2020 fire season figure, as they did not include Tasmania in their data.

一项研究发现，2019年9月至2020年1月期间，受灾最严重的维多利亚州和新南威尔士州的580万公顷(1430万英亩)阔叶林遭到破坏，占澳大利亚全部森林面积的21%。大多数情况下，每年澳大利亚森林火灾造成的损失仅占森林总量的2%。研究人员认为，他们低估了2019/2020年火灾季节的数据，因为他们的数据中没有包括塔斯马尼亚岛。

"Halfway through Spring 2019 we realised that a very large part of the eastern Australian forest could be burned in this single season," Matthias Boer, from the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University, Penrith, told AFP.

西悉尼大学霍克斯伯里环境研究所的Matthias Boer告诉法新社:“在2019年春季的中途，我们意识到东澳大利亚的大部分森林可能在这个单一的季节被烧毁。”

"The shock came from realising that this season was off the charts globally in terms of the percentage of the continental section of a forest biome that burned."

“令人震惊的是，人们意识到，就一个森林生态群落的大陆部分被烧毁的比例而言，这个季节超出了全球的记录。”

The Australian bush is home to many iconic animals found nowhere else on Earth, like koalas and wallabies, and it’s estimated that over a billion animals died in the recent fires. Some of the worst-affected species that you might not have heard of include the glossy black cockatoo, the Hastings River mouse, and the Kangaroo Island dunnart, a little marsupial found solely on the island with which it shares its name. Losing a fifth of Australia’s forest habitat certainly spells bad news for the wildlife that resides there.

澳大利亚丛林是许多地球上其他地方找不到的标志性动物的家园，比如考拉和小袋鼠。据估计，超过10亿动物死于最近的火灾。一些受影响最严重的物种，你可能没有听说过，包括有光泽的黑色鹦鹉，黑斯廷斯河鼠，和袋鼠岛dunnart，一种只在岛上发现的有袋类小动物，它的名字与此岛同名。失去澳大利亚五分之一的森林栖息地对生活在那里的野生动物来说无疑是个坏消息。

So why has this bushfire season been so terrible? For the past few years, the Murray-Darling Basin, a vast area in southeastern Australia home to 2 million people that holds a large system of rivers, and is crucial to much of Australia’s agriculture, has been unusually dry, experiencing the longest period of below-average rainfall since 1900.

那么为什么这个山火季节如此可怕呢?墨累-达令盆地位于澳大利亚东南部，面积广阔，拥有200万人口，拥有庞大的河流系统，对澳大利亚的农业至关重要。过去几年，该盆地异常干旱，经历了自1900年以来持续时间最长的低于平均水平的降雨。

The lack of rain is linked to Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events, which can bring rain to the region. Negative IOD events, which occur when the waters of the eastern Indian Ocean are warmer than in the west, can up rainfall. But as ocean temperatures rise with global warming, the number of these events has declined, starving southeastern Australia of rain.

缺雨与印度洋偶极子(IOD)事件有关，IOD事件会给该地区带来降雨。当东印度洋的海水温度高于西印度洋时，就会发生负碘事件，从而增加降雨。但随着海洋温度随着全球变暖而上升，这些事件的数量已经减少，导致澳大利亚东南部少雨。

"With climate change, there have been projections that there will be more positive IOD events and fewer negative IOD events," Andrew King of the University of Melbourne, lead author of a Nature Climate Change paper, told AFP.

《自然气候变化》杂志上一篇论文的第一作者、墨尔本大学的安德鲁·金对法新社说:“随着气候变化，已经有预测说，将会有更多的积极IOD事件和更少的消极IOD事件。”

"This would mean that we'd expect more dry seasons in Australia and possibly worse droughts."

“这意味着，我们预计澳大利亚将出现更多的旱季，可能还会出现更严重的干旱。”

And more droughts mean more fires. A dry, arid environment provides lots of fuel for fires in the form of dry vegetation. And once the flames have been extinguished, a drought makes it harder for plant life to recover.

更多的干旱意味着更多的火灾。干燥、干旱的环境以干燥植被的形式为火灾提供了大量的燃料。一旦火焰被扑灭，干旱会使植物更难恢复。

With intense bushfire seasons set to become more normal as the world warms, Australia’s government must swiftly take action against climate change to protect the country in the years to come.

随着全球变暖，强烈的森林火灾季节将变得更加正常，澳大利亚政府必须迅速采取行动应对气候变化，在未来几年保护国家。