消融的格陵兰 Greenland Is Melting Away

ON THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the

frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole. 格陵兰冰盖——凌晨1点，子夜太阳仍在照射着广阔的格陵兰冰盖。怀俄明大学(University of Wyoming)水文学博士研究生布兰登·奥弗斯特里特(Brandon Overstreet)在这片冰面上小心翼翼，将他的安全带系到冰层中的一个锚上，朝着一条向下流入巨大深坑的河流的边缘徐徐前进。

If he fell in, “the death rate is 100 percent,” said Overstreet's friend and fellow researcher, Lincoln Pitcher.

奥弗斯特里特的朋友、同为研究员的林肯·皮彻(Lincoln Pitcher)说，如果他掉进去了，“百分之百会死。”

But Overstreet's task, to collect critical data from the river, is essential to understanding one of the most consequential impacts of global warming. The scientific data he and a team of six other researchers collect here could yield groundbreaking information on the rate at which the melting of Greenland ice sheet, one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on Earth, will drive up sea levels in the coming decades. The full melting of Greenland's ice sheet could increase sea levels by about 20 feet.

奥弗斯特里特的任务是从水中收集重要数据，这对了解全球变暖最重要的影响来说是必不可少的。他和其他六名研究员组成的团队在这里收集的科学数据，可能会提供有关格陵兰冰盖融化速度的突破性信息。该冰盖是世界上最大且融化速度最快的冰块之一，会在未来几十年抬高海平面。格陵兰冰盖全部融化会将海平面抬高20英尺。This summer in Greenland, the scientists set up camp on the ice, where they hoped to capture the first comprehensive measurements of the rate of melting. Their research could yield valuable information to help scientists figure out how rapidly sea levels will rise in the 21st century, and thus how people in coastal areas from New York to Bangladesh could plan for the change.

今年夏季，科学家们在格陵兰冰盖上搭起帐篷，他们希望在这里获取首批有关融化速度的全面测量数据。他们的研究可能会提供具有价值的信息，帮助科学家们了解海平面在21世纪的抬升速度，以及从纽约到孟加拉国等沿海地带的居民该如何应对这种变化。

For years, scientists have studied the impact of the planet's warming on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. But while researchers have satellite images to track the icebergs that break off, and have created models to simulate the thawing, they have little on-the-ground information and so have trouble predicting precisely how fast sea levels will rise.

科学家们多年来一直研究全球变暖对格陵兰和南极冰盖的影响。但当研究人员通过卫

星图像追踪破裂冰山的情况，创建模型来模拟这种融化时，他们获得的实地信息很少，因此难以精确预测海平面的抬升速度。

But the research is under increasing fire by some Republican leaders in Congress, who deny or question the scientific consensus that human activities contribute to climate change.

但这项研究遭到国会中一些共和党领袖日益强烈的抨击，他们否认或质疑一个科学共识，即人类活动在一定程度上导致气候变化。

Getting Ready

做好准备

In July, Smith's team arrived in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, a dusty outpost of 512 people on the island's southwest coast, which serves as a base for researchers to prepare for fieldwork on the ice sheet.

史密斯的团队于今年7月抵达格陵兰岛康克鲁斯瓦格，这是位于西南沿海的一个灰尘

漫天的偏远地带，只有512名居民，充当研究人员冰盖实地考察工作的准备基地。

The scientists were excited but anxious as they prepared to travel inland by helicopter to do the fieldwork at the heart of their research: For 72 hours, every hour on the hour, they would stand watch by a supraglacial watershed, taking measurements — velocity, volume, temperature and depth — from the icy bank of the rushing river.

科学家们准备乘坐直升机前往内陆，深入研究的核心地带开展实地考察：接下来72个小时，他们每时每刻都要在一个冰面分水线边值班，站在结冰的河岸上，测量这条湍

急河流的流速、流量、温度及深度。

“No one has ever collected a data set like this,” Asa Rennermalm, a professor of geography at the Rutgers University Climate Institute who was running the project with Smith, told the team over a lunch of musk ox burgers at the Kangerlussuaq airport cafeteria.

“从来没有人这样收集数据，”罗格斯大学气候研究所(Rutgers University Climate Institute)的地理学教授阿萨·伦纳马尔姆(Asa Rennermalm)在康克鲁斯瓦格机场餐厅一边吃午餐——麝牛汉堡，一边这样对团队说。伦纳马尔姆与史密斯是项目负责人。Taking each measurement was so difficult and dangerous that it would require two scientists at a time, she said. They would have to plan a sleep schedule to ensure that a group was always awake to do the job. Everyone knew the team would be working just upriver from the moulin — the sinkhole that would sweep anyone who fell into it deep into the ice sheet.