北极海冰融化会引发加州森林野火吗? (上)

This is Scientific American’s 60 Second Science. I’m Emily Schwing.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是艾米丽·施文。

Oil and water. Apples and oranges. Fire and Ice…

油与水。苹果与橙子。火与冰…

None of these things really seem like they have much to do with one another…or do they?

这些东西看起来都不像是有多大关系…事实真的如此吗？

We found that more fire-favorable weather associated with declines in the Arctic sea ice during summer can increase autumn wildfires over the western United States.

我们发现越来越多有利于火灾发生的天气与夏季北极海冰的减少相关，这进而导致了秋季美国西部野火的增加。

Hailong Wang is an earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.

王海龙是华盛顿州太平洋西北国家实验室的地球科学家。

So we analyzed a few decades of observations [of how] wildfire incidents, sea ice cover and weather conditions to identify a relationship between Arctic sea ice decline and the wildfire risks.

我们分析了几十年来对野火事件、海冰覆盖和天气条件的观察结果，以确定北极海冰减少和野火风险之间的关系。

We called it a teleconnection.

我们称这是一种远关联。

Wang says this idea of a fire and ice teleconnection… It’s not new.

王海龙表示，这种冰与火的远关联并不是什么新鲜事。

It’s a lot like the so-called “butterfly effect” - a term coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960’s to explain chaos theory.

这很像所谓的“蝴蝶效应”--这是气象学家爱德华·洛伦茨在20世纪60年代创造的一个术语，用来解释混沌理论。

The idea can be summarized like this: if a butterfly flaps its wings in one location, that could displace enough air to cause a tornado or some other large scale atmospheric storm elsewhere.

这个概念可以概括为：如果一只蝴蝶在一个地方拍打了翅膀，就可能导致产生足够多的空气，从而在其他地方引发龙卷风或其他一些大规模的大气风暴。

Certainly didn't invent this concept, but it has been in the atmospheric sciences for a long time.

这个概念当然不是由此产生的，但在大气科学中已经存在很长时间了。

So, because of the connections within the earth system, especially in the atmosphere, one small change in one region could affect other regions through the atmospheric circulations.

由于地球系统内部的联系，特别是在大气中的联系，一个地区的一个微小变化可能会通过大气环流影响其他地区。

Connections between declining sea ice and wildfire weather have been made before.

海冰减少和野火天气之间的联系以前就已经被研究过了。

Wang says previous findings have relied heavily on statistical relationships.

王海龙表示，以前的发现在很大程度上依赖于统计关系。

For example, they find that Arctic sea ice are declining in many years, and they also found the increase in extreme weather like wildfires in the western U.S.

例如，他们发现，北极的海冰多年来正在减少，他们还发现，美国西部野火火灾等极端天气在增加。

But it couldn't explain the cause and the effect.

但这不能解释因果关系。