1.I’d like to talk to you today about the scale of the scientific effort that goes into making the headlines you see in the paper.
今天我想跟大家说说 有关于报纸头条新闻背后的 科学家们所付出的努力
2.Headlines that look like this when they have to do with climate change, and headlines that look like this when they have to do with air quality or smog.
事关气候变化时，报纸头版是这样的 这个是关于空气质量和烟雾的头条
3.They are both two branches of the same field of atmospheric science.
它们是大气科学的两个分支
4.Recently the headlines looked like this when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, put out their report on the state of understanding of the atmospheric system.
这是最近的报纸头条， 当时，联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会，即IPCC 发布了一份针对理解大气系统形势的报告
5.That report was written by 620 scientists from 40 countries.
这份报告由来自40个国家的 共620名科学家撰写
6.They wrote almost a thousand pages on the topic.
在这个主题上，他们倾注了近一千页的努力
7.And all of those pages were reviewed by another 400-plus scientists and reviewers, from 113 countries.
同时，来自113个国家的400多位科学家 和观察员审读了整份报告
8.It’s a big community. It’s such a big community, in fact, that our annual gathering is the largest [physical] scientific meeting in the world.
这是一个很大的群体， 事实上，我们年会是全球物理学界最大的会议
9.Over 15,000 scientists go to San Francisco every year for that.
每年开会时，逾15000名科学家云集洛杉矶
10.And every one of those scientists is in a research group, and every research group studies a wide variety of topics.
他们中的每一个都代表着一个研究小组 以及每个小组的大量研究课题
11.For us at Cambridge, it’s as varied as the El Ni?o oscillation, which affects weather and climate, to the assimilation of satellite data,
在剑桥，我们的研究方向各式各样 有影响天气和气候的厄尔尼诺现象 有卫星数据同化
12.to emissions from crops that produce biofuels, which is what I happen to study.
还有生产生物燃料的农作物的排放，这也是我正好在研究的
13.And in each one of these research areas, of which there are even more, there are PhD students, like me, and we study incredibly narrow topics,
在每一个研究领域里，当然远不止这些 都有像我这样的博士生 我们都在研究非常狭窄的课题
14.things as narrow as a few processes or a few molecules.
窄到只是寥寥几个反应或者几个分子
15.And one of the molecules I study is called isoprene, which is here. It’s a small organic molecule. You’ve probably never heard of it.
我正在研究其中一种叫异戊二烯的分子 大家看，是种小有机分子，你们可能从未听过
16.The weight of a paper clip is approximately equal to 900 zeta-illion — 10 to the 21st — molecules of isoprene.
一个回形针的质量大约等同于 10的21次方个异戊二烯分子
17.But despite its very small weight, enough of it is emitted into the atmosphere every year to equal the weight of all the people on the planet.
尽管这种分子很轻 每年排放到大气中的该种分子的质量相当于 地球上所有人类的体重总和
18.It’s a huge amount of stuff. It’s equal to the weight of methane.
这可是很大一堆东西，跟甲烷的总质量相当了
19.And because it’s so much stuff, it’s really important for the atmospheric system.
正因如此，这种分子对大气系统举足轻重
20.Because it’s important to the atmospheric system, we go to all lengths to study this thing.
这种分子是如此重要 以至于我们不遗余力的去研究它
21.We blow it up and look at the pieces.
我们使它进行化学反应，然后看看反应遗留的分子碎片
22.This is the EUPHORE Smog Chamber in Spain.
这是位于西班牙的EUPHORE装置的烟雾室
23.Atmospheric explosions, or full combustion, takes about 15,000 times longer than what happens in your car.
分子在大气中经过充分的燃烧 这个过程所花费的时间比在你车里反应所花的长15000倍
24.But still, we look at the pieces.
即便如此，我们仍然观察反应结果
25.We run enormous models on supercomputers; this is what I happen to do.
我们在超级计算机上运行大量的模型 这正好是我在干的事
26.Our models have hundreds of thousands of grid boxes calculating hundreds of variables each, on minute timescales.
我们的模型里有成百上千的网格 每个网格在分钟级的时间尺度上计算成百个变量
27.And it takes weeks to perform our integrations.
我们花费数周的时间整合数据
28.And we perform dozens of integrations in order to understand what’s happening.
为了理解究竟发生了什么， 我们进行数十次的整合
29.We also fly all over the world looking for this thing.
同时，我们在世界各地搜寻这种物质
30.I recently joined a field campaign in Malaysia. There are others.
最近我在马来西亚参加了一个野外研究项目，别处也有类似的项目
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31.We found a global atmospheric watchtower there, in the middle of the rainforest, and hung hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of scientific equipment
我们在当地雨林里建立了一个全球大气监视塔 我们在塔上悬挂了 价值数十万美元的科学设备
32.off this tower, to look for isoprene, and of course, other things while we were there.
这是都是为了探测异戊二烯分子 当然，也可以探测别的存在的东西
33.This is the tower in the middle of the rainforest, from above.
这就是雨林中的那座塔，这是从上看
34.And this is the tower from below.
再从下方看看
35.And on part of that field campaign we even brought an aircraft with us.
在上次的野外考察中我们还动用了
36.And this plane, the model, BA146, which was run by FAAM, normally flies 120 to 130 people.
FAAM旗下的BA146型飞机 这种飞机通常客容量在120至130人之间
37.So maybe you took a similar aircraft to get here today.
也许在座的各位今天就是搭乘类似的飞机到达会场的
38.But we didn’t just fly it. We were flying at 100 meters above the top of the canopy to measure this molecule — incredibly dangerous stuff.
但科学家的工作可不只是搭乘飞机这样简单。 为了测量这种分子飞机的飞行高度离森林中天棚似的树荫仅为100米–很危险
39.We had to fly at a special incline in order to make the measurements.
为了进行测量，飞机要保持在一个特殊的飞行角度
40.We hire military and test pilots to do the maneuvering.
为此我们请来军事和飞机试驾飞行员来驾驶飞机
41.We have to get special flight clearance.
此外我们还准备了特殊飞行许可
42.And as you come around the banks in these valleys, the forces can get up to two Gs.
当飞机一路从河谷飞过，阻力就已高达2G
43.And the scientists have to be completely harnessed in in order to make measurements while they’re on board.
要进行测量 科学家们就一定要在机舱里进行控制
44.So, as you can imagine, the inside of this aircraft doesn’t look like any plane you would take on vacation.
想象一下 我们的飞机机舱可不是普通飞机可以媲美的
45.It’s a flying laboratory that we took to make measurements in the region of this molecule.
它是测量分子的空中实验室
46.We do all of this to understand the chemistry of one molecule.
这是我们为了解化学分子所进行的努力
47.And when one student like me has some sort of inclination or understanding about that molecule, they write one scientific paper on the subject.
像我一样的学生们要是对某一分子情有独钟 或有独到见解 就会把自己的看法写成科学论文
48.And out of that field campaign we’ll probably get a few dozen papers on a few dozen processes or molecules.
然后对那几十种分子的研究就会积累 几十篇文章
49.And as a body of knowledge builds up, it will form one subsection, or sub-subsection of an assessment like the IPCC, although we have others.
这样知识体系就构建起来了 次级学科，或次次级学科就形成了 包括IPCC在内，我们有很多这样的研究
50.And each one of the 11 chapters of the IPCC has six to ten subsections.
IPCC的11个章节中 都有六至十个次级学科
51.So you can imagine the scale of the effort.
科学的努力付出可见一斑
52.In each one of those assessments that we write, we always tag on a summary, and the summary is written for a non-scientific audience.
我们的每一篇研究报告 都会有一个 为普通大众所写的摘要
53.And we hand that summary to journalists and policy makers, in order to make headlines like these.
然后摘要就交给记者和政策制定者 新闻报道的标题就形成了
54.Thank you very much.
非常感谢
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