南极东部冰盖坍塌

1.An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday.

忧心忡忡的科学家上周五表示，在南极洲东部，一个纽约市大小的冰架已经坍塌,长期以来，该地区一直被认为是稳定的，受气候变化影响不大。

2.The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. 

卫星图像捕捉到了这次冰架崩塌，它标志着人类历史上这一寒冷地区第一次发生冰架崩塌。

3.It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees (40 Celsius) warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica. 

上周，南极洲东部一些地区的气温飙升，比正常温度高出70多度(40摄氏度)。

4.Satellite photos show the area had been shrinking rapidly the last couple of years, and now scientists wonder if they have been overestimating East Antarctica’s stability and resistance to global warming that has been melting ice rapidly on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula.

卫星照片显示，这一地区在过去几年里一直在迅速缩小，现在科学家们想知道，他们是否高估了东南极洲的稳定性和对全球变暖的抵抗力，而全球变暖已经导致较小的西部地区和脆弱的半岛上的冰迅速融化。

5.The ice shelf, about 460 square miles wide (1200 square kilometers) holding in the Conger and Glenzer glaciers from the warmer water, collapsed between March 14 and 16, said ice scientist Catherine Walker of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She said scientists have never seen this happen in this part of the continent, making it worrisome.

伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的冰科学家凯瑟琳·沃克说，这个覆盖着康格尔和格伦策冰川的约460平方英里(1200平方公里)宽的冰架，在3月14日至16日之间崩塌，她说，科学家们从未在该大陆的这一地区看到过这种情况，这实在是令人担忧。

6.“The Glenzer Conger ice shelf presumably had been there for thousands of years and it’s not ever going to be there again,” said University of Minnesota ice scientist Peter Neff.

明尼苏达大学的冰科学家彼得·内夫说:“格伦泽-康格尔冰架可能已经在那里存在了数千年，而如今它再也不会在那里了。”

7.The issue isn’t the amount of ice lost in this collapse, Neff and Walker said. 

内夫和沃克说，问题不在于这次崩塌中失去的冰的数量。

8.That is negligible. 

这是可以忽略不计的。

9.It's more about the where it happened.

更重要的是崩塌所发生的位置。

10.Neff said he worries that previous assumptions about East Antarctica’s stability may not be correct. 

内夫说，他担心之前关于南极洲东部稳定性的假设可能是不正确的。

11.And that’s important because if the water frozen in East Antarctica melted — and that’s a millennia-long process if not longer — it would raise seas across the globe more than 160 feet (50 meters). 

这一点很重要，因为如果南极洲东部冻结的水融化——这是一个长达千年的过程，甚至更久——它将使全球海平面上升160英尺(50米)以上。

12.It’s more than five times the ice in the more vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where scientists have concentrated much of their research.

这是更脆弱的南极西部冰盖的五倍之多，科学家们在那里已经集中进行了大量的研究。