海平面上升可能会淹没网络

The big hurricanes last summer—Harvey, Irma and Maria—knocked out internet service for many residents. But another threat to the internet is just plain old sea level rise.

"去年夏天的大飓风-哈维，伊尔玛和玛丽亚-摧毁了许多居民的互联网服务。但互联网的另一个威胁只是常规的海平面上升。

“Uh, yeah, some is already happening." Carol Barford, a biogeochemist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. " There’s a lot of data out there that shows that sea level on the coast is rising."

“呃，是的，有些已经发生了。”Carol Barford是威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的生物地球化学家。“我的意思是有很多数据显示海岸的海平面正在上升。”

And that, she says, means big problems for internet connectivity in major coastal cities like New York, Seattle and Miami . Barford and her colleagues forecast that danger using a map of global internet networks, and sea level rise data from NOAA.

她说，这对纽约、迈阿密和西雅图等主要沿海城市的互联网连接而言是个大问题。 Barford和她的同事使用全球互联网网络图和美国国家海洋与大气管理局（NOAA）海平面上升的数据预测危险。

"So there are two maps, where’s the internet stuff and where’s the flooding. And they’re superimposed, where they coincide, there are problems."

“所以有两张地图，有互联网的地方和有洪水的地方。当它们相互叠加时，它们重合的地方就会出现问题。”

Using NOAA’s extreme sea level rise estimate, recommended for forecasts involving long-term infrastructure like this, the researchers say that 15 years from now, 4,100 miles of fiber-optic cable could be underwater. And 1,100 internet hubs could be surrounded by water. And remember, our land-based infrastructure isn’t waterproof, like transoceanic cables are.

根据NOAA的极端海平面上升预测，推荐用于涉及这类长期基础设施的预测，研究人员表示，从现在起15年后，4,100英里的光纤电缆可能在水下。1,100个互联网枢纽可能被水包围。请记住，我们的陆基基础设施不像跨洋电缆一样防水。

"Seawater comes in, and cabling is not meant to work underwater. So signals will be interrupted and dropped. The actual infrastructure itself might deteriorate." The researchers presented the peer reviewed findings at the Applied Networking Research Workshop in Montreal this week.

“海水进来了，电缆并非按理在水下工作。因此信号将被中断和停止。实际的基础设施本身可能会恶化。”研究人员本周在蒙特利尔的应用网络研究研讨会上介绍了同行评审结果。

They also write that large internet service providers including AT&T, CenturyLink and Inteliquent face the greatest risk. If these predictions play out, internet companies need to harden their networks soon, they say. Or we could lose service during the emergency—right when we need it most.

他们还写道，包括AT＆T，CenturyLink和Inteliquent在内的大型互联网服务提供商面临着最大的风险。他们说，如果这些预测逐渐发生，互联网公司需要尽快加强他们的网络。或者，正好在我们最需要的时候，我们可能会在紧急情况下失去服务。