经济学人下载:地理工程学 包含着承诺

Science and technolgy
科学技术

Geoengineering
地理工程学

Implicit promises
包含着承诺

A geoengineering experiment has come unstuck. But there will be more
地理工程试验取得突破。可期待更多。

FOR the past few years, a European collaboration called IMPLICC has been looking at what it might mean to engineer the climate,
近几年在欧洲合作平台上，简称IMPLICC的组织，

by reducing the amount of sunshine that reaches the Earth's surface.
持续对减少阳光直射地球为目的研究做探讨。

A lot of IMPLICC's work, like much else in climate science, has taken the form of computer modelling.
探讨是为了解该项气候工程的含义。IMPLICC和其他气候科学研究相似，较多采用电脑模拟程序。

In its case the models try to mimic the effects of things like putting veils of reflective particles into the stratosphere,
在这里，创造出的气候模型设法模拟出两种情况，其一是将层层的反光微粒放入平流层中，

or brightening the clouds over the oceans.
其二是增加海洋上空云朵对光线的反射度。

This week the IMPLICC team and other interested parties met in Mainz, Germany, to discuss the results—for the various models have turned out to agree far better than many of their creators expected.
IMPLICC团队与其他相关组织，这个星期在德国--迈因茨举行讨论。

In particular, they suggest that particles in the stratosphere can indeed stop rising levels of greenhouse gases raising the overall global temperature, though in doing so they slightly cool the tropics while the poles warm a bit.
多个模型结果的相符程度还比模型创造人所预计的更相似，加强了预测结果的可信度。尽管温室气体在持续的增加中，研究显示反光微粒能防止温室气体，造成全球气温的升高。

Other things being equal, the models also agree that geoengineering tends to suppress the hydrologic cycle, with less evaporation and less rainfall.
与此同时，预计到热带地区气温会微降， 南北极的气温则会微升。 所有其他因素不变，各模型一致显示水文循环会遭压制，代表将有较少的蒸发及降雨量。

Some researchers, however, want to go beyond modelling.They wish to experiment in the real world.
然而，有些科研人员则选择进行真正的实验。

The highest-profile of these schemes has been part of a programme called SPICE, which is paid for mainly by Britain's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
最受瞩目的是简称SPICE的组织。

Much of SPICE takes place in computers and laboratories, but one part was to be an actual experiment—a tethered balloon with a kilometre-long hosepipe attached to it.
SPICE主要是由EPSRC助资，大部分研究仍在使用电脑程序及实验室研究，一部分研究则在使用真实实验。

The idea was to pump a small amount of water up to the balloon and thence out into the air, so as to assess the possibility of spraying out other substances at far greater heights.
实验采用一公里长的输送管拴住气球。气球升空后，实验性地通过输送管在空气中喷洒水，为估计在更高气层中喷洒其他物质的可能性。

This move to a practical project has proved controversial.
转向这类真实实验模式是有它的争议点。

Some people worry that tinkering deliberately with the atmosphere may cause more harm than good.
有人担心，以粗浅的方法任意操纵大气层，弊会大于利。

Others fear that if geoengineering is shown to work it will, by offering a palliative for the problem of global warming, let politicians put off difficult decisions that might lead to a permanent solution.
此外，地理工程即使奏效，功效也不会持久。

As Clive Hamilton, a philosopher critical of much of the thinking behind geoengineering research, pointed out to the meeting, though the environmental effects of such experiments may be nugatory,
哲学家克利韦·汉密尔顿在会议中对地理工程研究背后的理念提出批评，指政治家可能借暂缓措施，推迟制定有难度的持久性对策。

their effects on the way people think could be more profound, and much less easily contained.
认为地理工程或对环境影响微不足道，但对人们的思考模式却有更深层及无法控制的影响。

Cloud cover
云盖

In light of such thinking, in September 2011, a stakeholder committee consisting of a geographer,
这类思考方向的浮现，促使利益相关者委员会于9月2011年成立。

a sociologist, an atmospheric scientist, an engineer and an adviser to Friends of the Earth who had been appointed by the EPSRC told the SPICE merchants,
EPSRC任命，由地理学家，社会学家，大气层科学家，工程师及地球的朋友各一位所组成。

they needed to be more convincing about how the experiment would be explained, how it would fit into ideas about the future, and how its safety and wisdom could be vouched for publicly.
委员会要求SPICE商家，对实验目的，未来环境展望的合适性，如何对公众提供研究操作上的安全及知识担保，向这几个方面做出更有说服力的解释及支持。

A further complication was a patent application covering some relevant technology by Peter Davidson, a consultant engineer whom the EPSRC had asked to play a role in choosing what geoengineering work it should pay for.
实验的执行更因工程顾问彼得·戴维森对相关技术做出专利权申请，而有所复杂化。

Though this application had been filed before SPICE was proposed,
戴维森同时受EPSRC委托，负责挑选可获资助的地理工程项目。

and Mr Davidson both declared his interest and recused himself from discussions on SPICE team when advising EPSRC,
戴维森先生在SPICE组成之前以提交专利申请，也呈报有关利益冲突并对EPSRC提供专业指导时，刻意回避针对SPICE团队的讨论。

Matt Watson of Bristol university, SPICE's principle investigator, was sufficiently concerned about both the application and wider issues of the sort considered by the stakeholder committee that, this week, he cancelled the balloon experiment.
尽管如此，身为SPICE主要调查员的布里斯托尔大学人员马特·沃森，对专利权申请及受趣益相关者委员会关注的广泛问题持有所顾忌，以取消这星期的气球实验。

The meeting in Mainz also learned, though, of another experiment that has met with better fortune.
迈因茨会议仍从另个实验有所获得。

Last September a team led by researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in La Jolla, California, looked at whether clouds could be whitened artificiallyusing particles emitted from a boat.
实验团队来至加利福尼亚—拉奥拉，斯克里普斯海洋学公共机构，探讨的是，利用船只排出的微粒体将云朵人工白化的可行性。

Such brightening has been observed in the exhaust plumes of cargo ships for some time, but Lynn Russell, who ran the experiment, was still surprised by how much brightening the team saw.
观察出能使云朵变白，实验人员琳·拉塞尔仍对实验成果，云朵的白化程度感到惊讶。

Though Dr Russell's experiment had been designed mainly to look at how clouds form naturally, it paves the way for future work on geoengineering.
云朵若经白化，就能把更多阳光反射回太空。尽管货船排放出的废气羽状物以被拉塞尔的实验是为观察云朵的自然形成而设计，在此也为更多地理工程研究铺路。

How that will affect attitudes to global warming remains to be seen.
该实验会如何影响对全球变暖的态度，却仍无法预计。