國(guó)家地理:不再凍人的五大湖(2)

But what Leavitt was doing the February day was a rare occurrence last winter across the Great Lakes. The long-term average for ice coverage on all five Great Lakes -- Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario -- is 54 percent. Last winter, ice covered only 19.5% of the lake's surface is a near record low.

但這個(gè)二月天拉維特所做的事，在去年冬天的五大湖一帶卻不常見(jiàn)。長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)，蘇必利爾湖、密歇根湖、伊利湖、休倫湖、安大略湖這五大湖的平均覆冰量是54%。去年冬天卻僅有19.5%的湖面有冰覆蓋，幾乎是創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄地低。

Some lakes in the region didn't freeze at all. Others saw only faint traces of ice around their edges, or froze briefly. The weekend before Leavitt's outing, temperatures in the region shot up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and ice anglers slogged through slush in T-shirts.

這一帶有些湖泊根本沒(méi)有結(jié)凍。另一些則只在湖岸邊有些微的冰，或只是暫時(shí)結(jié)冰。拉維特去冰釣前的那個(gè)周末，該地區(qū)的氣溫沖上了40華氏度，冰釣客是穿著T恤在雪泥中行走的。

One overly warm season isn't necessarily a harbinger of inevitable. But increasingly, scientists can pick out patterns in the scattershot records of change from across the Great Lakes, and those patterns are pointing toward a sobering conclusion: The 2019/2020 winter, with its faint traces of ice, is likely just a taste of the future.

一次溫暖過(guò)頭的冬季，不見(jiàn)得就預(yù)示了未來(lái)必定是如此。但是科學(xué)家也越來(lái)越能從五大湖各地散亂的變化紀(jì)錄中看出模式，而這些模式全都指向一個(gè)令人警醒的結(jié)論：只有少許湖冰的2019至2020年冬季，可能只是讓人提早體驗(yàn)未來(lái)。