帮助候鸟寻找安全的迁徙之路(3)

Before this innovation, our collective understanding of how many birds might be moving on any given night was pretty rough. Now that understanding is much clearer.

在这项创新之前，我们对每个夜晚可能有多少只候鸟飞行的总体理解相当粗略。现在这种理解更加清晰了。

It opened our eyes. We could see migration at a continental scale.

这让我们大开眼界。我们可以看到一个大陆规模的迁徙。

We could see where differences were showing up. We could see the ebb and flow of migration on a nightly basis.

我们可以看到差异显现之处。我们每晚都能看到候鸟迁徙的潮起潮落。

But really importantly, we could start pairing those movements with predictors to say, “Okay, the winds are out of this direction. They’re moving at this speed. The temperature is X, Y or Z. Cloud cover is at this level. And we see this amount of migration.”

但真正重要的是，我们可以开始将这些候鸟移动与预测器配对。预测器会说：“好吧，风不在这个方向。它们以这个速度移动。温度是X、Y或Z。云量在这个水平。我们看到了大量的候鸟迁徙。”

Kyle and his team learned that, like with weather systems, you can predict the movements of migratory birds and that these movements are closely tied to weather patterns.

凯尔和他的团队了解到，就像天气系统一样，你可以预测候鸟的移动，而候鸟移动与天气模式密切相关。

They pulled nearly 25 years of past radar data to look at the relationship between birds and weather.

他们提取了近25年来的雷达数据来研究鸟类与天气的关系。

With a lot of help from machine learning, the relationship was stunningly clear and highly predictable.

在机器学习的帮助下，这种关系非常清晰，而且高度可预测。

This is mostly how I knew that May 23, 2022, had the potential to be a big night for night calls over my house.

这就是为什么我知道2022年5月23日有可能成为重要夜晚的原因，因为那晚我家接到夜间来电。

We can now forecast the movement of migratory birds in near real time.

我们现在可以近乎实时地预测候鸟的迁徙。

We make forecasts multiple times a day, and you can see those forecasts live, spring and fall, on a site called BirdCast.

我们每天要预报多次候鸟迁徙，你可以在BirdCast网站上收看春秋季的实时预报。

BirdCast was an idea two decades ago, and now it’s come to fruition in terms of that vision.

BirdCast是20年前的一个想法，而现在这一想法已经得以实现。

If you go on March 1 to around mid-June, we have spring migration forecasts.

如果在3月1日至6月中旬浏览网址，将会有春季迁徙预报。

If you go mid-August to mid-November, we have fall forecasts showing up on BirdCast.

如果在8月中旬至11月中旬浏览，BirdCast上将会展示秋季预报。

Kyle and his team are using these forecasts to help curb one of the biggest issues that migratory birds face: the deadly effects of artificial light pollution.

凯尔和他的团队正在利用这些预报，帮助控制候鸟面临的最大问题之一：人造光污染带来的致命影响。

Artificial light is not something most people would instantly recognize as a harmful pollutant.

人造光并不是大多数人会立即意识到的有害污染物。

But according to Kyle, it’s a huge problem for migratory birds.

但凯尔表示这对候鸟来说是个大问题。

If you go out and take a can of paint, and you dump it in the lake, yeah, you’re polluting, right?

如果你拿一罐油漆出去，然后将其倒进湖里，是的，你在污染环境，对吧?

But if you leave your porch light on at night, or we leave your office lights on, and it’s casting light out into the airspace, is that pollution, right?

不过，如果晚上开着门廊的灯，或者开着办公室的灯，灯会把光投射到空中，这是污染, 对吧?

And some folks might say no, and some folks might say yes. And I would be in the camp of saying that that’s a pollutant.

有些人可能认为不是污染，而有些人可能认为是污染。我的阵营是，我认为这是一种污染物。

So that’s one of the things that birds are facing.

这是鸟类面临的问题之一。

So what can this kind of airborne pollution do?

那么这种空气污染会造成什么影响呢?