年全球气温创纪录新高

Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring warnings about the risks of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and undermining claims by climate change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped.

科学家上周五发表报告显示，去年是自1880年记录开始以来，地球上最热的一年，对温室气体排放失控的危险发出了更强的警告，削弱了反对气候变化者认为的全球变暖已经停止的观点。

Extreme heat blanketed Alaska and much of the western United States last year. Records were set across large areas of every inhabited continent. And the ocean surface was unusually warm virtually everywhere except near Antarctica, the scientists said, providing the energy that fueled damaging Pacific storms.

去年，酷热天气覆盖了阿拉斯加州和大部分美国西部地区。地面温度在所有有人居住的大陆上都创下了记录。科学家说，海洋表面在除南极洲附近海域以外的几乎所有水域中都异常温暖，为造成巨大破坏的太平洋风暴提供了能量。

In the annals of climatology, 2014 surpassed 2010 as the warmest year. The 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997, a reflection of the relentless planetary warming that scientists say is a consequence of human activity and poses profound long-term risks to civilization and nature.

在气候学的史册里，2014年超过了2010年，成为最热的年份。有记录以来的10个最暖年份都是在1997年以后，反映了地球不断变暖的趋势，科学家说，这种变暖是人类活动的结果，并对人类文明和大自然构成了深远的长期危险。

“Climate change is perhaps the major challenge of our generation,” said Michael H. Freilich, director of earth sciences at NASA, one of the agencies that track global temperatures.

“气候变化也许是我们这代人的重大挑战，”美国国家航空航天局(NASA)地球科学部主任迈克尔·H·弗莱利赫(Michael H. Freilich)说，他的部门是跟踪全球气温的机构之一。

Of the large land areas where many people live, only the eastern portion of the United States recorded below-average temperatures in 2014, in sharp contrast to the unusual heat in the West. Some experts think the weather pattern that produced those American extremes is an indirect consequence of the release of greenhouse gases, though that is not proven.

在美国许多人居住的大面积地区之中，只有东部在2014年记录到低于平均气温的温度，这与西部的异常高温形成了鲜明对比。有专家认为，造成美国这些极端温度的天气模式是温室气体排放的间接后果，但这个观点尚有待证明。

Several scientists said the most remarkable thing about the 2014 record was that it had occurred in a year that did not feature a strong El Niño, a large-scale weather pattern in which the Pacific Ocean pumps an enormous amount of heat into the atmosphere.

一些科学家说，2014年成为创下气温纪录的一年，最值得注意的一点是该年度并没有发生强大的厄尔尼诺现象，一种由于太平洋将巨大的热量输送到大气层所造成的大尺度天气模式。

Skeptics of climate change have long argued that global warming stopped around 1998, when an unusually powerful El Niño produced the hottest year of the 20th century. Some politicians in Washington have seized on that claim to justify inaction on emissions.

对气候变化持怀疑态度的人长期以来认为，全球气温已在1998年左右停止变暖，那年是20世纪最热的一年，原因是异常强大的厄尔尼诺现象。华盛顿的一些政客用这种说法作为不对温室气体排放采取行动的理由。

But the temperature of 1998 is now being surpassed every four or five years, and 2014 was the first time that happened without a significant El Niño. Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said the next strong El Niño would probably rout all temperature records.

但1998年的记录现已被每四、五年一次的新记录多次打破，而2014年的记录是在没有显著厄尔尼诺现象发生的年度创下的。加文·A·施密特(Gavin A. Schmidt)是位于曼哈顿的美国宇航局戈达德太空研究所的所长，他说，下一次的强厄尔尼诺现象可能会打破所有的温度记录。

“Obviously, a single year, even if it is a record, cannot tell us much about climate trends,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “However, the fact that the warmest years on record are 2014, 2010 and 2005 clearly indicates that global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”

“很显然，单独一个年度，即使是创记录的年度，不可能告诉我们很多关于气候变化趋势的东西，”德国波茨坦气候影响研究所地球系统分析部门主管斯德范·拉姆斯朵夫(Stefan Rahmstorf)说。“然而，有记录以来的最热年度是2014年、2010年和2005年的这个事实清楚地表明，全球变暖并没有‘在1998年停止’，像一些人喜欢错误地宣称那样。”

Such claims are unlikely to go away, though. John R. Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is known for his skepticism about the seriousness of global warming, pointed out in an interview that 2014 had surpassed the other record-warm years by only a few hundredths of a degree, well within the error margin of global temperature measurements. “Since the end of the 20th century, the temperature hasn’t done much,” Dr. Christy said. “It’s on this kind of warmish plateau.”

但是，那些宣称不大可能会消失。阿拉巴马州大学亨茨维尔校区的大气科学家约翰·R·克里斯蒂(John R. Christy)以怀疑全球变暖的严重性而知名，他在一次采访中指出，2014年的记录只比以前年度的创纪录温度高出百分之几度，完全是在全球温度测量值的误差范围之内。克里斯蒂说，“自20世纪末，气温并没有太多变化，一直处于较暖的稳定水平。”

Despite such arguments from a handful of scientists, the vast majority of those who study the climate say the earth is in a long-term warming trend that is profoundly threatening and caused almost entirely by human activity.

尽管有少数人坚持这种说法，但绝大多数研究气候的科学家表示，地球正在经历一个长期变暖的趋势，这种趋势给人类带来深刻的威胁，而且几乎完全是由人类活动造成的。

They expect the heat to get much worse over coming decades, but already it is killing forests around the world, driving plants and animals to extinction, melting land ice and causing the seas to rise at an accelerating pace.

他们预测，在未来几十年中，炎热天气会变得更糟，这种天气已经在世界各地导致森林死亡、植物和动物物种灭绝、陆地冰层融化，以及海平面上升速度加快。

“It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be witnessing a record year of warmth, during a record-warm decade, during a several decades-long period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled for more than a thousand years, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels,” Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at the Pennsylvania State University, said in an email.

宾夕法尼亚州立大学的气候科学家迈克尔·E·曼恩(Michael E. Mann)在电子邮件中说，“如果不是由于燃烧化石燃料所产生的、导致地球变暖的气体排放越来越多的原因，在上千年史无前例的几十年较暖期间、创纪录地变暖的十年中，看到变暖的又一个记录年度，是非常不可能的。”

NASA and the other American agency that maintains long-term temperature records, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued separate data compilations on Friday that confirmed the 2014 record. A Japanese agency had released preliminary information in early January showing 2014 as the warmest year.

NASA和另一个保持长期气温记录的美国机构、国家海洋和大气管理局在上周五发布了各自的数据汇编，证实了2014年是创纪录的一年。一家日本机构曾在一月初发布初步信息显示，2014年是最热的一年。

One more scientific group, in Britain, that curates the world’s temperature record is scheduled to report in the coming weeks.

英国的一个收集全球气温纪录的科学小组也将在未来几周内提交报告。

Separate temperature measurements taken from satellites do not show 2014 as a record year, although it is close. Several scientists said the satellite readings reflected temperatures in the atmosphere, not at the earth’s surface, so it was not surprising that they would differ slightly from the ground and ocean-surface measurements that showed record warmth.

来自用卫星采集的独立温度测量结果没有显示2014年是记录年，但是接近记录。几位科学家说，卫星测量的数据反映的是大气层的温度，而不是地球的表面温度，所以卫星数据会与来自地面和海洋表面的测量结果略有不同，并不奇怪，而表面的温度测量显示了创记录的温暖。

“Why do we keep getting so many record-warm years?” Dr. Schmidt asked in an interview. “It’s because the planet is warming. The basic issue is the long-term trend, and it is not going away.”

施密特在接受采访时问道，“为什么我们接连看到如此多的创纪录温暖年度？这是因为地球正在变暖。根本的问题是，这是一种长期趋势，这种趋势不会消失。”

February 1985 was the last time global surface temperatures fell below the 20th-century average for a given month, meaning that no one younger than 30 has ever lived through a below-average month. The last full year that was colder than the 20th-century average was 1976.

1985年2月是全球表面温度低于给定月份的20世纪平均值的最后一个月份，这意味着所有年龄在30岁以下的人都没有经历过低于平均温度的月份。最后一个低于20世纪平均温度的年度是1976年。

The contiguous United States set a temperature record in 2012, a year of scorching heat waves and drought. But, mostly because of the unusual chill in the East, 2014 was only the 34th warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.

不包括阿拉斯加和夏威夷在内的美国本土曾在2012年创下温度记录，那年发生过灼人的热浪和干旱。主要是由于东部地区不同寻常地寒冷，才使得2014年的温度对这48个州来说，仅在有记录以来的最暖年度中排名第34。

That cold was drawn into the interior of the country by a loop in a current called the jet stream that allowed Arctic air to spill southward. But an offsetting kink allowed unusually warm tropical air to settle over the West, large parts of Alaska and much of the Arctic.

冷空气是被一个名为高空急流的气流循环带到美国本土的内部，这让北极的冷空气南下。但是，一个抵消这种冷空气的怪现象，让异常温暖的热带空气停留在西部地区、阿拉斯加大部分地区以及北极大部分地区的上空。

A few recent scientific papers say that such long-lasting kinks in the jet stream have become more likely because global warming is rapidly melting the sea ice in the Arctic, but many leading scientists are not convinced on that point.

一些最近发表的科学论文说，高空急流中这种持续较长的怪现象，由于全球变暖正在导致北极地区海洋中的冰迅速融化而变得更可能发生，但许多主要的科学家还没有被这种观点说服。

Whatever the underlying cause, last year’s extreme warmth in the West meant that Alaska, Arizona, California and Nevada all set temperature records. Some parts of California essentially had no winter last year, with temperatures sometimes running 10 to 15 degrees above normal for the season. The temperature in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, never fell below zero in 2014, the first time that has happened in 101 years of record-keeping for the city.

不管是什么根本原因，去年美国西部地区的极端温暖意味着，阿拉斯加州、亚利桑那州、加利福尼亚州和内华达州都创下了气温记录。加利福尼亚州的一些地区去年基本上没有冬天，那些地区的气温有时比季节正常温度高出10到15华氏度(5.5到8.3摄氏度)。在阿拉斯加的最大城市安克雷奇，2014年的气温从未低于华氏零度(或摄氏零下18度)，在该市101年的气温记录中，这是首次。

Twenty years of global negotiations aimed at slowing the growth of heat-trapping emissions have yielded little progress. However, 2014 saw signs of large-scale political mobilization on the issue, as more than 300,000 people marched in New York City in September, and tens of thousands more took to the streets in other cities around the world.

二十多年的旨在减少温室气体排放增长的全球谈判几乎没有进展。但在2014年，人们看到了针对这个问题的大规模政治行动的迹象，在30多万人去年九月在纽约举行大游行之后，世界各地的其他城市中也有数以万计的人走上街头。

The next big attempt at a global climate agreement will come when negotiators from around the world gather in Paris in December. Political activists on climate change wasted no time Friday in citing the 2014 heat record as proof that strong action was needed.

达成一个全球性气候协议的下一次大尝试，将是在来自世界各地的谈判代表今年12月聚集巴黎的时候。气候变化问题的政治活动人士上周五不失时机地引用2014年的温度记录为证，表明采取强有力行动的必要性。

“The steady and now record-breaking rise in average global temperatures is not an issue for another day,” Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who is spending tens of millions of dollars of his personal fortune to battle climate change, said in a statement. “It’s a clear and present danger that poses major economic, health, environmental and geopolitical risks.”

纽约前市长迈克尔·R·布隆伯格(Michael R. Bloomberg)正在为抗击气候变化花费自己私人财产的数千万美元，他在一份声明中说，“全球气温稳步上升、如今破纪录地上升的问题，不是一个未来的问题。这是一个迫在眉睫的明显危险，对经济、健康、环境和地缘政治有重大的危害。”