格陵兰岛冰盖融化速度再创纪录

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·英塔利亚塔。

Greenland is the biggest island in the world. And the ice sheet that sits atop it is massive.

格陵兰岛是世界上最大的岛屿。它上面的冰盖非常巨大。

“The pile of ice is so thick, it extends more than 10,000 feet above the ocean.

“这堆冰非常厚，延伸到海面上1万多英尺。

And if all that ice were to melt and go into the ocean, global sea levels would rise by 24 feet everywhere around the world.”

如果所有的冰都融化并进入海洋，全球海平面将上升24英尺。”

Jason Briner, a geologist at the University at Buffalo.

布法罗大学的地质学家杰森·布赖纳。

The ice sheet is melting, of course. But just how much, compared to the past?

当然，冰盖正在融化。但与过去相比，有多少呢?

Briner’s team did a computer simulation of the southwest portion of the Greenland ice sheet—which he says is a good proxy for ice melt across the entire ice sheet.

布赖纳的团队对格陵兰岛冰原的西南部分进行了计算机模拟，他说这是整个冰原融化的一个很好的代表。

The researchers plugged past climate data into that model to “hindcast,” rather than forecast, the past activity of the ice sheet.

研究人员将过去的气候数据输入该模型，以“追算”(而不是预测)冰盖过去的活动。

They then checked the model’s predictions of the past shape and size of the ice sheet by looking at piles of rocks and boulders and dirt on Greenland today, which outline the edges of ancient ice.

然后，他们通过观察今天格陵兰岛上成堆的岩石、巨石和泥土来检查模型对冰盖过去形状和大小的预测，这些岩石勾勒出古代冰的边缘。

And the simulation was in good agreement with the actual situation.

仿真结果与实际情况吻合较好。

Using that reconstruction of the ice sheet over time, the team could compare the ice sheet’s historic losses to those happening today under human-caused global warming.

随着时间的推移，利用冰盖的重建，该团队可以将冰盖的历史损失与今天在人为全球变暖下发生的损失进行比较。

And they determined that Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than during any century in the past 12,000 years—possibly four times as much.

他们确定格陵兰岛本世纪失去的冰量将超过过去 12,000 年中任何一个世纪——可能是过去 12,000 年的四倍。

The results appear in the journal Nature.

该项结果发表在《自然》杂志上。

Ultimately it’s up to us how much ice actually melts.

最终取决于我们能融化多少冰。

“Humanity has the knob—the carbon knob—and that knob is going to influence the rates of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet.”

“人类有一个旋钮——碳旋钮——而这个旋钮将影响格陵兰冰盖的冰流失速度。”

If the world goes net carbon zero by 2100, for example, Briner says ice loss could stop entirely at the end of the century, according to one model.

例如，根据一个模型，如果世界到2100年实现净碳零，布赖纳说，冰的流失可能在本世纪末完全停止。

“That was what kept me from being completely depressed about our study.”

“这就是为什么我没有对我们的研究感到完全沮丧。”

Dozens of countries have already announced goals to go net zero by the middle of this century—so far the U.S. is not one of them.

数十个国家已经宣布了到本世纪中叶实现净零排放的目标——到目前为止，美国还不在其中。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·英塔利亚塔。