BBC.地平线.2012.全球怪象

我们的天气发生了奇怪的变化
Something strange is happening to our weather.
本片将反复出现"天气"和"气候"两个词
天气 指短时间（几分钟到几天）发生的气象现象
气候 指某一长时期内（数年或更长）天气的平均或统计状况
似乎开始变得更极端
It seems to be getting more extreme.
是的 可能会是个破纪录的寒冷夜晚
Yeah, it could be a record-breaking cold night...
最近 英国熬过了两个连续的
Britain recently shivered through
打破纪录的寒冷冬天
two back-to-back record-breaking cold winters.
去年
Last year,
苏格兰经历了有史以来最多的降水
Scotland splashed through its wettest year on record.
道路封闭
可是今年年初
Yet earlier in the year,
英格兰东部部分地区遭遇了最干旱的春天
parts of eastern England had their driest spring ever.
不过 英国不是个特例
But the UK's not alone.
全球各地的天气都打破了以往纪录
Records are being broken all over the planet.
我从来没有见过这种情形
I have never, ever seen anything like this before.
风暴愈发凶猛
Storms appear to be getting bigger.
过去十年与八十年代相比
Hurricane power has more than doubled
飓风强度至少翻了一倍
between the decade of the '80s and this past decade.
天气开始变得异乎寻常
The weather's been getting so weird
在某些地方 破纪录的降水过后
that in some places, record-breaking rain
随之而来的是破纪录的干旱
has been followed by record-breaking drought.
我们从未经历过
We've never had
这种降水的连年大幅波动
this kind of steep oscillation go from one year to the next.
有的科学家把这种现象叫做全球怪象
Some scientists are calling it Global Weirding.
曾经难得一见的极端天气
Events that used to be very random and extreme
现在变得更加频繁和剧烈
are becoming much more frequent and more severe.
我们今后要面对的世界
We are gonna be living in a different world
将与小时候的大不相同
than the one we grew up in.
地平线
全球怪象
天气令我们着迷
Our weather is hypnotically beautiful.
它不断变化
It's constantly changing,
难以预测
famously difficult to predict.
但它为什么似乎变得更古怪了呢
But why does it seem to be getting weirder?
世界顶尖的气象学家
The world's leading weather scientists
试图寻找其中原因
are trying to understand what's happening.
这是一项全球性的研究
It's part of a global investigation.
因为无论你周围的天气如何
Because however local your weather feels,
也不过是全球天气系统的
it's a small part of what plays out across the planet
一小部分而已
as a whole.
可能看起来显而易见
It may seem obvious,
但是科学家
but one of the places scientists
想要通过地球上最极端的一种天气
are trying to get to grips with global weather extremes
试图了解全球的极端天气
is in one of the most extreme weather events on Earth.
而没有任何气象活动比飓风更猛烈
And there's no bigger weather event than a hurricane.
这就轮到杰森·达涅恩等人登场了
And that’s where people like Jason Dunion come in.
他是研究飓风的科学家
He's a hurricane scientist
脱下白大褂
who's turned in his white coat
换上蓝色的伞兵服
for a blue jumpsuit,
走出实验室 走向美国佛罗里达州
and left the lab for the MacDill Air Force base
坦帕市的麦克迪尔空军基地
in Tampa, Florida.
因为杰森和他的同事们
Because Jason and his colleagues
驾驶这些飞机 飞向飓风中心
fly these aircraft into the middle of the weather madness.
这是了解飓风
It's the best way to work out
为何生成的最好方法
what really makes hurricanes tick.
只通过卫星或浮标
You can't get everything you need to know
对飓风进行观测
about a hurricane by just looking at it
无法得到关于飓风的所有信息
from say satellites or say a buoy that might be measuring the storm.
事实上我们必须飞进风暴里
So we've actually got to fly into that storm.
杰森·达涅恩
迈阿密大学&美国国家海洋暨大气总署
才能更好地了解所发生的一切
To get a better sense of what's going on,
我们是投放仪器
whether we're dropping instruments into it
或使用雷达
or using radars
来取得一张飓风发生时的
to really get a nice three-dimensional picture
真实三维图
of what's going on.
这是唯一可行的办法
You can't do that in any other way.
在飓风里开展复杂的科学实验
But carrying out complicated scientific experiments in the middle of hurricane
会伴随着一些独特的问题
creates its own set of unique problems.
从三千米的高空飞进来
You're coming in at say 10,000 feet,
然后穿过外♥围♥的雨带
and you're passing through outer rain bands,
飞机开始有一些轻微的颠簸
and you're starting to get jostled around a bit in the plane.
然后穿过风眼墙
Then you go through the eye wall.
那是包围着风眼的圆筒状云
So that’s that doughnut around the eye of a storm
其风力非常强
that's really intense.
飞机会被刮得剧烈摇晃
And you’re getting tossed around pretty good.
能在几秒钟内下降近百米
You can lose a few hundred feet of altitude in a few seconds.
穿过风眼墙 就到了不可思议的地方
Pop through that eye wall and it's incredible.
这里看起来像是个橄榄球场
You're in what looks like a football stadium.
也许是你见过的最大的橄榄球场
Maybe the biggest one you've ever seen.
可能宽16 32或48公里
But it can be 10, 20, 30 miles across.
而且这里 风平浪静
And it's... it's very still.
经历过之前的狂风后
It's a very surreal spot in the storm,
风暴中心像是个梦幻的地方
after what you've gone through.
你也知道这是一头野兽
And you know this is a beast.
但当然了 你只穿过了风暴的一半
But of course, you're only through half the storm.
还有一半要走
There's still halfway to go.
飓风追逐者每次飞行 都会收集海量的数据
The hurricane chasers produce mountains of data from every flight.
而他们的一项发现是
And one of the things they've discovered
飓风晚上会发生脉冲
is that hurricanes pulse at night.
更值得注意的是
More significantly,
他们同时记录下
they've also recorded an increase
五级风暴数量在增长
in the number of category five storms,
它们是最极端最强劲的飓风
the most extreme and powerful hurricanes.
如果看看历史
If you look at the history,
会看到最近几年有许多五级风暴
we've seen many category fives over the years.
我们现在确实有更好的监测能力
We certainly have better tracking capabilities right now.
所以我们可以观测到
So we can actually see
海洋中心发生的五级风暴
category fives maybe happening in the middle of the ocean
在一百或五十年前 我们可能会错过
that we would have missed hundreds and say 50 years ago.
最近几年里肯定有更多大型飓风
So certainly there have been more major hurricanes in recent years
我们设法去了解
and we're trying to understand exactly
其发生的原因
why that's happening,
我们必须得密切关注那些飓风
but we have to keep an eye on those.
因为那些飓风能造成巨大的破坏
Because those are the storms that can cause all the damage.
杰森和他的飓风追逐同伴
So, Jason and his fellow hurricane chasers
记录了越来越多的五级风暴
are recording more category five storms.
科学家开始
And this is a development
极力应对这一变化
that scientists are really starting to grapple with.
世界只有上大约11%的热带气旋
North Atlantic hurricanes only account for about 11%
是北大西洋飓风
of the world's tropical cyclones.
然而凯瑞·伊曼纽教授
But Professor Kerry Emanuel,
世界领先的飓风专家之一
one of the world's leading hurricane experts,
开始在自家的后院中
has started to see something of a pattern
看到某种规律
in his own backyard.
过去十年的天气是史上最糟糕的
This last decade was the worst in the record books.
尤其是2005年
2005 was an especially bad year.
凯瑞·伊曼纽教授
麻省理工学院
我们经历了数量空前的飓风
We had a record number of hurricanes.
编号♥时英语字母都用完了
So many they ran out of letters of the alphabet
不得不使用希腊字母表
and had to go to the Greek alphabet.
伊曼纽教授正在设法
Professor Emanuel is trying to figure out
找出原因
why this might be happening.
一个关键的因素
One crucial factor
是飓风形成时 最重要的机制
is the mechanism that's at the core of what makes them work in the first place.
飓风受热量驱使
Hurricanes are driven by heat.
其实它们简直就是超大的热力发动机
In fact, they're quite simply massive heat engines.
它们有效地把热量从海洋中
They effectively transfer warmth from the ocean
转移到大气层中
and into the atmosphere.
热量向上转移时
As all of that heat drifts upwards,
会激发巨大的强飓风
it gets whipped into huge hurricane-force winds.
这是一个我们都有切身体会的过程
This is a process we all have personal experience of.
人们外出的时候
When people go outside,