帮助候鸟寻找安全的迁徙之路(2)

We have this incredible and unique system of radars across the U.S.

非凡而又独特的雷达系统遍布全美。

It goes by a number of names. I say Weather Surveillance Radar.

雷达名字众多。我说的是气象监视雷达。

We might turn on the TV and hear Doppler radar, Nexrad. Formally, these are WSR-88D radars.

我们打开电视，可能会听到多普勒天气雷达(Doppler radar)和下一代气象雷达（Nexrad）。这些雷达的正式名称是WSR-88D雷达。

That’s Weather Surveillance Radar. WSR-88 is when they [were] reengineered in 1988, and the D [is] telling us that these radars have Doppler capacity.

WSR-88D雷达中的WSR指的是气象监视雷达，88指的是重新设计的时间1988年，D指的是这些雷达具有多勒普能力。

This is Kyle Horton. He’s an assistant professor in the department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University.

这是凯尔·霍顿。他是科罗拉多州立大学鱼类、野生动物和保护生物学系的助理教授。

And clearly Kyle knows something about radar. But rather than tracking raindrops ...

很明显凯尔对雷达有所了解，而不是追踪雨滴......

I use, primarily use weather surveillance radars to monitor the passage of nocturnally migrating birds.

我主要使用气象监测雷达来监测夜间迁徙的鸟类。

So when I was a graduate student, I started with three sites, and that was a big deal. We went up to six sites.

我读研的时候，从三个地点下手，那是一件大事。我们去了六个地点。

By the end of my Ph.D., we were working on a study with 20 sites, and at that point, that was the largest study of using radar data in the U.S. for migratory birds, and it seemed like a massive achievement at that point.

在我读博结束时，我们的研究已经有了20个地点，就这点而言，这是美国采用雷达数据对候鸟进行的最大研究，在这点上，这似乎是一个巨大的成就。

I would say within a year from us starting that study, we had ramped up to a study using all of the radars, all 143.

我想说，我们开始这项研究之后的一年里，我们的研究扩大了，总共使用了143个雷达。

As Kyle mentioned, you are likely most familiar with radar in the context of weather.

正如凯尔所提到的，你可能最熟悉天气背景下的雷达。

And that’s the exact system Kyle is talking about: all 143 WSR-88D radar stations located across the contiguous U.S..

这就是凯尔所说的系统：所有143个WSR-88D雷达站都位于美国邻近地。

The radar sends out a signal. That signal bounces off of something in the atmosphere and returns back to the radar.

雷达发出一个信号。大气中的某种东西会将这个信号反射回来，随后返回到雷达上。

That signal returning can tell us something about the intensity of that signal. Is it big or small? Is it a small rain droplet or a big rain droplet?

返回的信号会告诉我们信号的强度。是大还是小? 是一个小雨滴还是一个大雨滴?

That signal that returns can tell us which direction things are moving: north, south, east or west. It can tell us how fast things are moving as well.

返回的信号可以告诉我们物体移动的方向：东、西、南还是北。返回的信号还可以告诉我们物体移动的速度。

So again, those tools, those measurements are set up for meteorologists to quantify the movement of a thunderstorm or a tornado or a hurricane coming through the Gulf of Mexico region.

这些工具、这些测量是为气象学家量化穿过墨西哥湾地区的雷雨、龙卷风、飓风的运动而建立的。

It turns out that we can also think of birds as big raindrops.

研究证明，我们也可以把鸟类想象成大雨滴。

Most of the content of a migratory bird is water, so the radars are well equipped for that detection.

一只候鸟体内的大部分物质都是水，因此，雷达装备精良，可以探测到候鸟。

It’s not to say that they’re detecting tens of birds or hundreds of birds, but we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of birds to millions of birds on a given night.

并不是说雷达能探测到几十只或几百只候鸟，而是说在一个特定的夜晚雷达可以探测到几十万只到几百万只鸟。

And I think those numbers are just—they’re eye-popping in a way. They’re hard to comprehend.

我认为这些数目在某种程度上庞大得令人瞠目结舌。理解起来并不容易。

I sometimes have to give myself a sanity check, too, of “Is it really possible we’re detecting 500 million birds flying across the U.S.?”

我有时也不得不进行合理性检查，“我们真的有可能探测到5亿只鸟飞过美国吗?”

And you do the numbers, you crunch them.... Okay, yep, that makes sense.

不过，当计算这些数字，大量处理这些数字后....好吧，这个数字很合理。