紐時賞析／氣候研究發現 有些冰川無論如何都會消失

阿根廷巴塔哥尼亞地區，聖克魯斯省埃爾卡拉法特市附近，冰河國家公園內的佩裡託莫雷諾冰川邊緣4月21日崩落，冰落入阿根廷湖。路透

Some Glaciers Will Disappear Regardless of Temperatures, Study Finds

研究發現 有些冰川無論如何都會消失

Regardless of climate mitigation strategies, the world’s glaciers are on track to shrink significantly over hundreds of years, according to a new study published Thursday.

週四新發布的研究指出，無論採取什麼氣候緩解策略，全世界的冰川預計將在未來數百年內大幅萎縮。

Even if global temperatures stayed where they are today for the next 1,000 years, essentially an impossibility, glaciers outside of ice sheets would lose roughly one-third of their mass, researchers estimated.

研究員估計，即使全球氣溫在接下來1000年維持在目前的水平，而這根本不可能，但即使真的如此，冰蓋以外的冰川也會損失約三分之一的規模。

But there’s still hope to avoid the most severe losses, the assessment said. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above the preindustrial average could save about twice as much ice in a millennium than if the planet warmed by 2.7 degrees Celsius, the trajectory the world is currently on for 2100, according to the study.

但這份評估表示，仍有希望避免最嚴重的損失。研究指，若將全球升溫幅度限制在比工業革命前平均溫度升溫攝氏1.5度，即華氏2.7度，在1000年內保留的冰量，將是目前所預測2100年全球將升溫攝氏2.7度的兩倍。

“Every tenth of a degree less of warming will help preserve glacial ice,” said Lilian Schuster, a glacial modeler at the University of Innsbruck in Austria who helped lead the research, which was published in the journal Science.

奧地利茵斯布魯克大學冰川模型專家、協助主導發佈在「科學」期刊的研究的莉莉安．舒斯特表示：「每降低十分之一的暖化程度，都將有助於保留冰川的冰。」

The massive ice sheets that cover Antarctica and Greenland get a lot of attention in the climate change discussion; if they melted, sea levels would rise more than 200 feet, flooding coastal cities around the world.

覆蓋南極和格陵蘭的大規模冰蓋在關於氣候變遷的討論中得到許多關注；如果它們融化，海平面將上升超過200英尺，淹沒世界各地的沿海城市。

But glaciers found in mountains and near the margins of ice sheets play a small but significant role in the climate change story, too. They make up less than half of 1% of the world’s ice and, if they melt, they would contribute about 1 foot to global sea level rise.

但分佈於山區和冰蓋邊緣的冰川在氣候變遷中，也發揮微小但重要的作用。它們佔全球冰量不到1%的一半，而如果它們融化，將導致全球海平面上升1英尺。

Using eight different glacial models, the researchers analyzed how more than 200,000 of the world’s glaciers would respond to 80 different climate scenarios, over thousands of years.

研究員使用8種不同冰川模型，分析全世界超過2萬條冰河數千年來在80種不同氣候情境如何反應。

Even if warming stops at 1.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the average warming over roughly the last decade, glaciers are on track to lose significant volumes of ice within a millennium, the study found. The median ice loss was about 40%, which would add about 10 centimeters to sea level rise.

研究發現，即使暖化停止在比工業革命前平均溫度升溫攝氏1.2度，也就是過去10年的平均暖化水平，冰河也將在1000年內損失大量的冰。冰川損失中位數約40%，將致海平面上升10公分。

Because the planet has already warmed at least 1.2 degrees Celsius, that ice loss and its resulting sea level rise are unavoidable.

由於地球暖化至少已有攝氏1.2度，冰川的融解和導致的海平面上升無法避免。

文／Rebecca Dzombak，譯／羅方妤

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