“人造冰”可以挽救南极冰盖免于崩溃

“人造冰”可以挽救南极冰盖免于崩溃

Governments could stop the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from sliding into the ocean and submerging coastal cities by launching a last-ditch engineering project to blanket its surface with “artificial snow”, according to a study released on Wednesday.

本周三公布的一项研究显示，各国政府可以启动一项最后一道工程，用“人造雪”覆盖南极西部冰盖，防止其滑入海洋，淹没沿海城市。

Scientists believe that global warming has already caused so much melting at the south pole that the giant ice sheet is now on course to disintegrate, which would trigger an eventual global sea-level rise of at least three meters (10 feet) over centuries.

科学家们认为，全球变暖已经导致南极大量融化，巨大的冰盖正在走向解体，这将引发全球海平面在未来几个世纪内至少上升3米(10英尺)。

The authors of the new study envisaged using 12,000 wind turbines to pump seawater 1,500 meters (4,900 feet) up to the surface, where it would be frozen into “snow” to try to weigh the sheet down enough to stop it collapsing any further.

这项新研究的作者，设想使用12000个风力涡轮机，将海水泵到1500米(4900英尺)高的海面上，在那里海水会被冻结成“雪”，以使冰盖足够重，防止它进一步坍塌。

“We have already awoken the giant at the southern pole,” said Anders Levermann, a professor at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, referring to the ice sheet.

德国波茨坦气候影响研究所(Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)教授安德斯·莱弗曼(Anders Levermann)提到冰盖时说：“我们已经唤醒了南极的巨人。”

“We are already at a point of no return if we don’t do anything,” Levermann, who co-authored the study published in Science Advances,told Reuters. “We can bring it back to the stable point by a small interference now – or by larger and larger interference later.”

“如果我们什么都不做，我们已经到了无法回头的地步，”Levermann说，他是《科学进展》杂志上这项研究的合著者。“我们现在可以通过一个小的干扰，或者稍后通过越来越大的干扰，将其恢复到稳定点。”

With the droughts, floods, storms and wildfires associated with climate change intensifying globally, some scientists have begun to seriously contemplate interventions that would have been dismissed as wildly impractical even a few years ago.

随着全球范围内与气候变化有关的干旱、洪水、风暴和野火日益加剧，一些科学家开始认真考虑一些干预措施，即使在几年前，这些干预措施也会被认为是极其不切实际的。

Echoing many other climate scientists, Levermann said the most urgent priority was to deliver the rapid cuts in carbon emissions needed to meet the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which is aimed at averting runaway climate impacts.

Levermann与许多其他气候科学家一样，表示最紧迫的任务是迅速减少碳排放，以达到2015年《巴黎协议》的温度目标，该协议旨在避免失控的气候影响。

Although Levermann said full sea-level rise projected to follow the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might not unfold for hundreds of years, he said he published the paper out of concern for the fate of low-lying populations.

尽管Levermann表示，预计随着南极西部冰盖的崩溃，海平面将全面上升，但这可能要几百年才能实现，但他说，他发表这篇论文是出于对低洼地区人口命运的担忧。