每日英語跟讀 Ep.K403: About heat waves - Heat Wave Killed Marine Wildlife en Masse

An early estimate points to a huge die-off along the Pacific Coast, and scientists say rivers farther inland are warming to levels that could be lethal for some kinds of salmon.

一項初步估計顯示，（美國）太平洋沿岸海洋生物大量死亡；科學家則說，更內陸的河川的水溫，正升高到恐令某些鮭魚致命的程度。

Dead mussels and clams coated rocks in the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping open as if they’d been boiled. Sea stars were baked to death. Sockeye salmon swam sluggishly in an overheated Washington river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas.

死掉的淡菜與蛤蜊佈滿西北太平洋沿岸地區的岩石上，牠們的殼有如被煮熟似地張開。海星被活活烤死。紅鉤吻鮭在過熱的華盛頓河中緩慢游動，促使野生動物官員將之載運到較涼爽的區域。

The combination of extraordinary heat and drought that hit the Western United States and Canada over the past two weeks has killed hundreds of millions of marine animals and continues to threaten untold species in freshwater, according to a preliminary estimate and interviews with scientists.

根據一項初步估計以及對科學家所進行的訪談，美加西部過去兩週來慘遭異常高溫與乾旱襲擊，導致數以億計的海洋生物死亡，並持續威脅無數淡水物種。

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Arctic heatwave could break records 北極熱浪恐破紀錄

Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve. Temperatures are forecast to peak on Christmas Eve around the North Pole - at near-freezing. Climate scientists say these unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change.

今年耶誕夜的北極氣溫，恐將高出平均溫度達20度。氣溫預報顯示，北極周邊耶誕夜的溫度將升達高峰—接近冰點。氣象科學家說，北極地區這些不合時令的溫暖天氣模式，直接與人為造成的氣候變遷有關。

Temperatures throughout November and December were 5C higher than average. It follows a summer during which Arctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded by satellites.

整個11月與12月的溫度，要比同期平均溫度高出攝氏5度。而在夏季期間，北極海冰的規模達到衛星紀錄以來的第二低程度。

Dr Friederike Otto, a senior researcher at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute said that in pre-industrial times "a heatwave like this would have been extremely rare - we would expect it to occur about every 1,000 years".

牛津大學環境變遷研究所資深研究員奧圖博士說，在工業化前時代「諸如此類的熱浪極為罕見—我們認為大概每1000年才發生一次。」

Dr Otto added that scientists are "very confident" that the weather patterns were linked to anthropogenic climate change.

奧圖博士補充說，科學家「非常確信」該氣溫模式與人為造成的氣候變遷有關。

"We have used several different climate modelling approaches," she said. "And in all our methods, we find the same thing; we cannot model a heatwave like this without the anthropogenic signal."

「我們使用好幾個不同的氣候模型途徑，」她說。「然而在我們的方法中，我們發現相同之處：在缺少人為導因下，我們無法形塑出如此的熱浪。」Source article: https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1527294 ; https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/paper/1066371