A kangaroo hops amidst the Australian wildfires, which have burned since September 2019. CFP
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.
森林大火在澳大利亚并不少见。该国气候干热，在自然环境下易偶发山火。但去年9月发生的大火至今仍未扑灭，这或许并非自然原因。据《电讯报》报道，到目前为止，这场大火期间已烧毁了730万公顷（约7.3万平方公里）的土地，造成至少28人丧生，3000多所房屋被毁。科学家们认为，人为的气候变化影响了这场大火的产生和持续时间。
“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.”
“无论如何，我们或许都会面临火灾，”美国气候科学家彼得·格莱克在接受《时代周刊》采访时表示。“但在气候变化的影响下，这些火灾的程度、严重性和强度变得更糟糕了。”
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.
澳大利亚气象局的数据显示，自1920年以来，该国气温已经上升了超过1摄氏度。2019年的春天是澳大利亚120年来最干旱的一个春天。去年12月，这个国家又经历了有史以来最热的一天，平均气温为41.9摄氏度。
“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.
“由于气温升高加剧蒸发，植被与土壤干燥得更快了，” 联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会第四次评估报告的主要作者斯蒂芬·拉姆斯托夫在接受《时代周刊》采访时如此说道。
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，据英国广播公司报道，英国气象局的研究人员认为，类似的野火在未来或许会成为一种“常态”。研究人员查阅了2013年以来发表的57篇研究气候变化与野火风险之间关系的论文。他们发现，美国西部、加拿大、欧洲南部，甚至斯堪的纳维亚半岛以及西伯利亚等全球多地都已经对这两者之间的关系进行了观察。
“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.”
“全球气候变化相差1度便产生了我们所看到的这些影响。如果我们不采取行动稳定全球气候，情况会变得更糟，”英国东安格利亚大学教授科琳·勒·奎尔在接受英国广播公司采访时表示。“我们在澳大利亚所看到的情况并非‘新常态’，而是过渡期，以后影响会更糟糕。”
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