The hidden ways ocean currents change our world, with Helen Czerski
发布时间 2023-05-28 23:00:00 来源
Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a Bite Size Masterclass in podcast form. I'm Noah Leach, news editor at BBC Science Focus magazine.
大家好，欢迎来到《即学即智》（Instant Genius），这是一个以播客形式呈现的精短大师课程。我是BBC《科学焦点》杂志的新闻编辑诺亚·利奇（Noah Leach）。
You may have heard the phrase we know more about the moon than the deep sea. It's now an old phrase dating back to 1948. And in fact we actually know quite a bit more about the ocean than you might think, which physicist and oceanographer Helen Chesky shows in her new book Blue Machine. But it's still full of mysteries and that's why Helen says that the secrets of the moon and the ocean are incomparable because when it comes to the ocean there is just so much more to know and we urgently need to uncover more.
你可能听说过一句话“我们对月球的了解比深海更多。”这实际上是一个旧词汇，可以追溯到1948年。事实上，我们对海洋的了解远比你想象的要多得多。这是由物理学家和海洋学家海伦·切斯基在她的新书《蓝色机器》中所展示的。但它仍然充满了神秘，这就是为什么海伦说，月球和海洋的秘密是不可比较的，因为当涉及到海洋，我们需要了解更多并迫切地揭示更多。
In today's episode I speak to Helen about some of the secrets hidden and found in the ocean's currents, including shipwrecks and missing planes, what we've learnt from rubber ducks and finding Nemo, and the swelling currents in underwater rivers and waterfalls.
在今天的节目中，我和海伦谈论了一些隐藏在海洋洋流中的秘密，包括沉船和失踪的飞机，以及我们从橡皮鸭子和《海底总动员》中所学到的知识，还有水下河流和瀑布中不断膨胀的洋流。
Helen, I love the line in your book that says the more you know about the ocean the better it gets. So what's something that a lot of people don't know about the ocean but you think they should know?
海伦，我喜欢你书中的那句话，即越了解海洋，它就越好。那么，有什么许多人不知道但你认为他们应该知道的关于海洋的事情呢？
Well, it's that the ocean has its internal structure. This is kind of picture that it's just a big blue pond and it's all the same everywhere. But actually even though it's all water, that water is different in different places and there are huge boundaries between different types of water almost. You know, water with very different characteristics and there are kind of moving islands of water that move around inside the ocean. There's all this structure in there that's doing stuff. That's the one image I would love to place in people's heads. It's not just a big empty pond of just the same stuff. It's got an internal anatomy and it's doing things.
海洋有其内在结构。这可能让人们觉得它就像一个大蓝色池塘，而且各处都一样。但实际上，即使它是同样的水，不同地方的水也是不同的，不同类型的水之间有巨大的界限。你知道，在海洋内部还有具有非常不同特征的水，还有一些移动的水的岛屿在其中移动。里面有所有这些结构在起作用。这是我希望让人们有的一个形象。它不仅仅是一个只有相同东西的大空池塘。它有一个内在的解剖结构，并且正在使事情发生。
There are a lot of big unknowns about the ocean so you talk about it having surprises up at Sleeve and we have a lot of unanswered questions. So what are some of these big questions that we're yet to discover?
海洋有很多未知的领域，因此你可以谈论它有许多新奇的事物，我们还有很多问题尚未得到解答。那么，我们还有哪些重大问题等待着我们去发现呢？
Well, actually, before we get onto the unanswered questions, I have a right be in my bonnet about something that if you will permit me, I will have the small rant, which is that we don't know everything about the ocean but we keep trotting out this phrase that we know more about the moon than we do about the deep sea and that is not true. It is categorically not true and it undervalues the ocean hugely because it compares it to this dead empty place that hasn't changed for two billion years.
其实，在我们开始讨论未解决的问题之前，我有一个问题想要说一下。如果您允许的话，我会有一个小小的发泄。我们虽然了解不足关于海洋，但我们不断地说出一句话：“我们知道的有关月球的比我们知道的有关深海的多。”这句话是不正确的。它完全不正确，而且大大地低估了海洋的价值，因为它把海洋与一个已经停滞了20亿年没有变化的死寂地方作比较。
So actually we do know lots of things about the ocean. It's not the case that the whole thing is just one big mystery but there are still lots of fascinating things to discover. When it comes to the big questions about how it works, there are questions still about how the energy flows around the inside of the ocean. There's a lot of energy in turbulence, for example. And actually energy budgets are a really important thing because the ocean is not all the same. Energy is something that can stir it up and so tracking the energy around the ocean is really important. And also tracking the gases, it's all these invisible passengers of the ocean, tracking where oxygen in the ocean is, for example, and exactly where the carbon dioxide is.
事实上，我们对海洋的了解非常丰富。它不是一个巨大的谜团，但仍然有很多令人着迷的事情可以发现。当涉及到如何运作的重大问题时，仍然存在着如何在海洋内部流动能量的问题。例如，湍流中有大量能量。实际上，能量预算是一件非常重要的事情，因为海洋并不都一样。能量可以搅动海洋，因此跟踪海洋中的能量非常重要。此外，跟踪气体，这些无形的海洋乘客，追踪氧在海洋中的位置，例如，以及二氧化碳的确切位置。
Oxygen is actually a really big issue. We know that the amount of oxygen in the ocean is decreasing in the deep ocean by 2% over the last few decades. I can't just remember the numbers. We don't know enough to follow it around. We can't follow the breathing processes of the ocean. So there are some really quite fundamental things to do with the resources in the ocean for life, things like oxygen that we can't see them all yet. And they're really important questions.
氧气其实是一个非常大的问题。我们知道过去几十年里，深海中的氧气含量已经下降了2%。我不记得具体数字了。我们知道得还不够多，无法跟踪海洋的呼吸过程。因此，对于海洋生命的资源，像氧气这样的基本事物，我们还无法全部了解。这些问题非常重要。
Are we likely to find out the answer to some of these questions ever or soon? They're definitely answerable questions. The thing about the ocean is it's really tricky to study partly because it's so large and it's doing different things in all these different places. And partly because it's tricky to access, we're land mammals, we can float about on the surface. But we really need to be looking and measuring in lots of specific places in the ocean.
我们是否有可能在不久的将来或很快找到这些问题的答案？这些问题肯定是可以回答的。海洋非常难以研究，部分原因是由于它的面积非常大，而且不同的地方跑不同的事情。同时，我们很难接近海洋，因为我们是陆地哺乳动物，只能在水面上漂浮。但我们真的需要在海洋的许多特定地点进行观察和测量。
And that means going out on ships, which are expensive. We're not in a situation now where the robots can do this for us. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that we just haven't developed the robots. Although that's happening.
这意味着需要出海，但是这需要花费大量的费用。目前我们不具备让机器人为我们完成这项任务的能力。其中有一些原因。首先，我们还没有开发出能够完成这项任务的机器人，尽管这正在进行中。
It's a lot of work to build little autonomous machines that will sail around the inside of the ocean and the top, actually, and monitor things. But it's also that sometimes you just need humans to be there. You know, these processes are really big things. If you just need to measure the concentration of dissolved oxygen, a robot can do that. But if you have to make decisions about how to measure a really complex processes, you've got lots of scientists working together. You still need humans on ships. And ships are obviously a rare resource.
建造能够在海洋内部和顶部自主航行并监测情况的小型自动化机器是一项艰巨的工作。但有时候，你仍然需要人类的参与。你知道，这些过程非常庞大。如果你只需要测量溶解氧的浓度，机器人可以做到。但如果你需要做出关于如何测量一个非常复杂的过程的决策，你需要许多科学家一起工作。你仍然需要人类在船上。而且船只显然是一种稀缺资源。
You know, now there's an increasing concern about the carbon footprint of those ships. Even though, you know, when I go out to see I am studying carbon flows in the ocean, I'm still spending carbon to do that. And you talk about it being this vast, incredible system, which it absolutely is. Something that is not easy to access for us being land dwelling animals.
你知道，现在对那些船只的碳足迹越来越关注。尽管当我出去探索海洋中的碳循环时，我仍然需要消耗碳。你提到它是一个巨大而神奇的系统，而它确实是如此。对我们这些生活在陆地上的动物而言，这是一个不容易接近的东西。
So how do you actually go about mapping the Earth's currents? It's not an easy task. So it's actually quite interesting because the most effective way at the moment of measuring global currents is actually from space. I mean, it sounds crazy that something that, you know, we're talking about flows in some cases of perhaps only a few centimeters per second, a few meters per second in some cases. You know, you think you surely have to be there with something in the water to measure that water flowing.
那么如何实际进行地球电流的测绘呢？这并不是一项容易的任务。但目前测量全球电流最有效的方法实际上来自于空间。这听起来有些疯狂，因为我们讨论的是在某些情况下仅有几厘米每秒，有些情况下几米每秒的流动速度。你可能会认为，必须在水中使用某种工具才能测量水流的速度。
And sometimes you do. But actually, if you go out into low earth orbit and you look down on the ocean, we now have satellites that can do this incredible thing, satellite altimeters, that can measure the height of the ocean surface of the average. So, you know, if you average out the waves, the ocean surface has a shape that isn't just a sphere. You know, you can't see what these lumps and bumps in it.
有时你也会这样做。但实际上，如果你到低地球轨道上并俯瞰海洋，我们现在有卫星可以做出惊人的事情，卫星高度计能够测量海平面的高度。因此，如果你平均化海浪，海洋表面的形状不是一个球体。你知道，你看不到里面的凸起和隆起。
And the lumps and bumps are there for several reasons. But one of those reasons is because the water is moving. There's different ways this manifests itself. But one simple way to think about it is that, you know, in the North Atlantic, there's this big merry-go-around, big sort of roundabout where water is going clockwise around the North Atlantic. But as it goes around, you know, the spin of the earth means it's being pushed into the middle. So, it does get pushed into the middle, but then what happens is it piles up and makes a little hill and then think water tends to fall down hill. So, you get this balance where the current is going around the outside, but there's a hill in the middle. And the existence of that hill and the slopes lets you measure the currents.
这些肿块和凸起有多种原因，其中之一是由于水流动。这会以不同的形式展现。但一个简单的思路是，在北大西洋，有一个大的旋转木马，水顺时针流转。但随着它的运动，地球的自转会将其推向中心。因此，它被推向中心，但随后会堆积形成小山丘，因为水会下山流动。因此，你会得到一个平衡，其中流向在外部，但中间有一个山坡。这个山丘和斜坡的存在让你能够测量水流的速度。
And, you know, satellites, the satellites that do this can measure the average sea height to less than a centimeter. It's absolutely astonishing. But if you measure the lumps and bumps in the sea surface because of this relationship with water moving and gravity, you can actually tell where the surface currents are because the water piles up and the currents go kind of along the slope. They sort of go parallel to the slope. And so, we actually can map ocean currents really well from space. And because satellites are going round and round all the time and they can see a very wide area, we can look down on the planet and we can, we know where the currents are doing what.
这段话说的是卫星可以测量海面高度，精确到不到一厘米。通过分析海面的起伏，可以了解水的运动和重力关系，发现水的堆积和洋流方向，从而准确地测绘出海洋的洋流图。卫星可以全天候、全方位地观测，大范围地观测海洋流动，我们可以从空间角度研究洋流的变化。
You know, it's astonishing thing, but there's a little bit of physics gives us the way into doing it. And is it true that rubber ducks played a part in this or is that a kind of myth that needs to be busted? Well, the rubber ducks are one of many. So, so it's been known that this con, so flotsam and jetsam has been known about for a long time.
你知道吗，这是一个惊人的事情，但有一点点物理可以帮助我们做到这一点。是不是真的小黄鸭在其中扮演了一个角色，或者这是需要解开的一个神话？那么，小黄鸭只是众多漂浮物的其中之一。这个现象，所以漂浮物已经被人们了解了很长时间。
So floating things like that, they tell you where, where things are end up. So there was a very famous, I mean, this has happened lots of times. It's not just the rubber ducks, but one of the most famous cases was a container fell off the side of the cargo ship, which happens sometimes.
像漂浮的物体，它们能告诉你某样东西最后停留的地方。这种情况发生过很多次，不仅仅是橡皮鸭子，其中最著名的案例之一是集装箱从货船侧面掉落，这种情况有时是会发生的。
I don't understand how it doesn't happen more often, because if you look at those cargo ships, they're stacked up in this, no one, you know, your mother would never let you stack things like that up in your bedroom, right? Because it would fall over, but apparently the ships manage it. So occasionally one of those will fall off, break open and its contents will sort of spread. And the interesting thing about that is you put lots of things into the ocean at the same place and then you can see how many different places they end up in and they can travel a very, very long way. And there are some examples of, you know, the exact shape of the object.
我不明白为什么这种事情不经常发生，因为如果你看那些货船，它们是堆起来的，没有人，你知道，你的母亲永远不会让你在卧室里这样堆放物品，因为会倒塌，但显然这些船能应付。所以偶尔会有一个掉下来，破开并散开它的内容。有趣的是，你把很多东西放在同一个地方，然后你可以看到它们分散到了多少不同的地方，它们能够旅行很长很长的路程。有一些例子，可以看出物体的精确形状。
So things that are one shape will tend to go one way and things that are a different shape will tend to go in a different direction. So the rubber ducks were one famous example. I think it's happened a few times actually, where there was one particular container and then people were finding these rubber ducks for a long time. But it's happened, you know, the shoes, those cases, the specific islands where all the right hand shoes have washed up on one beach and all the left hand shoes are on another beach.
所以，形状相同的东西往往会走同一个方向，而形状不同的东西则会走另一个方向。橡皮鸭是其中一个著名的例子。实际上，这种情况已经发生了几次，有一个特定的货柜，人们长时间在不同的地方发现了这些橡皮鸭。但是这种情况也发生在鞋子、箱子和特定的岛屿上，其中所有的右鞋子都冲到了一个海滩上，而所有的左鞋子都被冲到了另一个海滩上。
These traces, they act as traces and they have been a very useful way of learning about currents. But actually we do that now with instruments deliberately. We put small floating things in the water with trackers on them and we can see where they go. And actually a lot of this science was very useful when the Malaysian plane, MH370, went down and they wanted, you know, bits were washing up and they wanted to work backwards to where the plane had actually crashed.
这些痕迹，它们就是痕迹，是一种非常有用的了解洋流的方式。但现在我们已经通过仪器来有意识地进行这项工作。我们在水中放置带有追踪器的小漂浮物，然后就可以看到它们的走向。实际上，当马来西亚航空公司MH370坠毁时，这项科学技术就非常有用了，当时有一些残骸被冲上了岸，他们想倒推坠机的具体位置。
This was the sort of science they were using that scientists had already put drifters in those areas. And they could say, well, you know, if something washes up here, it might well have come from over here back there. So yeah, so drifting things are very useful when it comes to tracking where the ocean's going. And it can make, you know, even the depth. So if you drop a small thing, the big thing in the same place, they will end up in different places because the small thing gets carried by the wind and the surface and the slightly bigger thing gets carried by the water flows deeper down.
这是科学家们在研究海洋漂浮物时采用的一种科学方法，他们已经将漂流物放置在那些区域中。他们可以说，你知道，如果有什么东西漂流到这里，它可能来自那里的某个地方。因此，漂流物对于追踪海洋走向非常有用。它甚至可以影响物体的深度。因此，如果你在同一地点放置一个小物体和一个大物体，它们最终会漂到不同的地方，因为小物体被风和表面的水流带走，而稍微大一点的物体被水流带到更深的地方。
So there's all this wonderful subtlety in the water's movement. And I think that was one of the things that sort of surprised everyone about the difficulty of finding that plane. One was that the ocean is very big. The other is that it came as an astonishing thing to a lot of people that all the stuff didn't end up in the same place.
因此，水的运动中有很多令人惊叹的细微之处。我认为这是让人们感到惊讶的事情之一，他们很难找到那架飞机。其中一个原因是海洋非常大。另一个原因是，许多人惊讶地发现，所有的东西都没有最终聚集在同一个地方。
Are there parts of the ocean where the currents don't reach the kind of deepest depth and underwater caves or is it kind of this constantly fresh moving system? One of the sort of ideas about the ocean that doesn't get talked about often enough is that the surface is quite separate to the deep in quite a lot of cases. So the surface of the ocean and it can be defined in slightly different ways depending on what you're doing. But you know, it's a warm layer. It's mixed up by the wind. That's the bit that we interact with. And that's the bit that the wind pushes along.
海洋中是否有部分区域的洋流无法触及最深处和海底洞穴，还是这是一种不断新鲜流动的系统？海洋的一个很少被谈论的想法是，在许多情况下，表面与深处是相当分离的。海洋的表面可以根据您的工作方式略微不同地定义，但它是一个温暖的层，被风混合。这就是我们所接触的部分，也是风推动的部分。
So wind-driven currents can be perhaps a few hundred meters deep. I think the Gulf Stream might be a kilometer deep in places. But you know, it's up near the surface and that's getting pushed around by the wind. And actually if you go further down in the ocean, if you go 4,000 meters down, there's no wind to push on that. But it does still move. And the reason it still moves is that density is pushing things around.
所以由风推动的洋流可能会有几百米的深度。我想在某些地方，墨西哥湾流可能有一公里的深度。但你知道，它靠近表面，被风推动。实际上，如果你深入海洋，到4000米深处，那里没有风来推动。但它仍在移动。其原因是密度在推动物质。
So for example, in the North Atlantic, in between Iceland and Greenland, there's a kind of lip in the ocean floor. So there's a very cold pool of Arctic water on one side. There's the North Atlantic on the other. And there's this kind of barrier between the two that's got a bit of a notch in it. And the cold dense water, which it's dense because it's cold, sort of flows over the notch and then sinks. It goes like a waterfall underwater. It goes down into the North Atlantic. And it slithers along the bottom because it's dense water. And the thing about that is it's got to push other water out of the way.
例如，在北大西洋的冰岛和格陵兰之间，海底有一种突出的嘴唇形状，一边是非常冷的北极水池，另一边是北大西洋，它们之间有个带一个缺口的屏障。这种冷而密集的水流会顺着缺口流动并下沉，然后像水下的瀑布一样沿着海底滑行。由于它们的密度很高，所以它们不得不将其他水排开。
So you've got this kind of downward movement that's then flowing southward. And so density causes very, very slow movement in the deep ocean, much, much slower than at the surface. But the deep ocean is moving on its own timescale. So it's separately to what the surface is doing, a lot of the time. And so things that go down into that deep water can stay down for hundreds or thousands of years because that's moving very slowly. The surface is all moving around much more quickly.
你可以看到这种向下的运动，然后向南流动。密度在深海中引起非常缓慢的运动，比表面慢得多。但深海按照自己的时间尺度运动。很多时候，它和表面的运动是分开的。所以下沉到深层水域的事物可能会停留数百或数千年，因为深海的运动非常缓慢，而表面则围绕得快得多。
But the places where they connect are incredibly important because that's when you're quick, you know, your bit that's in contact with the ocean, sort of becomes, it's like going down into the catacombs. And once it's down there, it's likely to stay there for a long time.
但是它们连接的地方非常重要，因为那是你迅速运动时，与海洋接触的部分，就像走进地下墓穴一样。一旦它下降到那里，它很可能会在那里停留很长时间。
And is it another myth or kind of how likely is it that the Arctic melt, the fresh cold water coming from melting glaciers could kind of cut off the Gulf Stream and send Europe into an ice age? So there's this idea that's been around for a while.
这是另一个神话还是一种可能性，即北极融化，融化冰川产生的淡冷水会切断墨西哥湾流，导致欧洲进入冰河时期？所以这个想法已经存在一段时间了。
意思：人们一直在猜测北极冰的融化会不会导致欧洲进入冰河时期，这是否是真的还是只是另一个神话，这个问题一直存在已经有一段时间了。
So basically the idea here is that in order for that sinking process to happen, you need denser water. But if you're melting things, if you're melting ice nearby from Greenland, for example, that's fresh water and fresh water is not so dense.
基本的想法是，想要进行下沉过程，需要更加密集的水。但是如果你正在融化附近的冰，例如来自格陵兰岛的冰，那么那是淡水，而淡水不是那么密集的。
So then you're potentially mixing your dense salty water that might sink with fresh water that means it won't sink. And then you're potentially turning off this tap to the deep, which cuts off the surface ocean from the depths.
那么，你可能会把密集的咸水与不会下沉的淡水混合在一起。接着，你可能会关闭通往深海的水龙头，使海表与海底隔离开来。
And so that's, you know, there's a thing called the Atlantic Meridial Overturning Circulation Amok. That's the name it gets called.
因此，你知道，有一样东西叫做大西洋经度环流失控。这就是它被称为的名字。
And so there's a lot of discussion about whether freshening water in the Arctic will sort of turn that off. And it's the similar thing with the Gulf Stream, this thought that it might slow down because of we're changing the density of water at the surface.
因此，人们正在讨论如果在北极地区更新水源是否会关闭这个过程。同样的事情也发生在墨西哥湾暖流上，人们担心因为我们改变了表面水的密度，暖流速度会减缓。
And you know, the jury is still out on this. The latest, to my understanding is that, you know, nobody thinks it's going to stop completely. That film the day after tomorrow, whatever it was called, that is not going to happen. But even if these things slow down a little bit, they could have big consequences for what's going on underneath.
你知道的，对于这件事，仍然有争议。据我所知，最新的情况是，没有人认为它会完全停止。那部名叫“后天”的电影，不管怎样，不会发生。但是即使这些事情稍微放缓一点，它们可能会对底层的情况产生重大影响。
I don't think anyone should worry about them stopping. These are big engine components. They're not just going to turn off overnight. However, even if they slow down, that might have an influence on depotion oxygen, for example. So it will still have consequences.
我认为没有人应该担心它们停止运行。这些是大型发动机组件。它们不会在一夜之间停止运转。然而，即使它们减速，这可能会对沉积物中的氧气产生影响，例如。因此，它仍将产生后果。
But it's not this, you know, I think it's not this kind of dramatic tipping point. Oh, it's going to switch off and we're all going to have nuclear winter. It's much more insidious than that in some ways.
但你知道，我认为这不是那种戏剧性的转折点。哦，它会突然关闭，然后我们都将面临核冬天。有些方面上，它比这更阴险。
And it's to do with, you know, where there's oxygen in the depotion for things to live, where the nutrients get to and where there are anything that's in the deep water can come back up to the surface again. But I think this idea that it's just going to turn off. I don't think anyone needs to worry about that. You know, we've got plenty of other things to worry about that are bad enough before we get there.
这与生物可以呼吸氧气和获取营养物质的深海区域有关，也与深水中任何东西再次浮到水面上有关。但是，我认为并不需要担心这种情况会完全关闭。在我们面临足够糟糕的其他问题之前，我们有足够多的其他问题需要担心。
So they're kind of nutrients being cycled round. Could you explain a little more about how the ocean's currents facilitate life?
所以它们是在循环的营养物质。您能否更详细地解释一下海洋洋流如何促进生命？
这句话的意思是，营养物质会在海洋中不断循环。对于第二句话，意思是请求对方再详细解释一下海洋洋流是如何对生命有促进作用的。
So there's this great paradox in the ocean, which is that the whole thing is powered by energy from sunlight. You know, there is a tiny amount of geothermal energy heat wise down below chemical energy. It's minuscule. It's not really doing anything in the big picture at all.
海洋中存在一个伟大的悖论，那就是整个海洋的能量来源于阳光。你知道，在海洋深处只有极少量的地热能热能和化学能。它们微不足道，从整体来看几乎没有发挥任何作用。
So the ocean is powered by sunlight and sunlight carries energy. But water is really opaque to sunlight. Like we think of waters being transparent, but it really isn't. Light does not travel through it very far.
因此，海洋的能量来自太阳光，太阳光携带能量。但是水对太阳光的透明度非常低。我们通常认为水是透明的，但实际上它并不是。光线在水中无法远距离传递。
And that means that what happens is that the light goes into the ocean at the top and it can't really go anywhere before it's turned into heat. But that means if something wants to use light energy to photosynthesize, they have to be at the top because that's the only place there's any light.
这意味着光线从海洋的顶部进入，然后在转化为热能之前无法去任何地方。但这也意味着，如果想要使用光能进行光合作用，它们必须在海洋的顶部，因为那里是唯一有光线的地方。
But the other thing you need is the right atoms to kind of build stuff out of. You need some matter, some material. And the thing about life in the ocean is that all these long carbon-based molecules that life are made are anything that's alive basically is more dense than water.
但你还需要的另一件事就是合适的原子来建造物质。你需要一些物质，一些材料。海洋生命的特点就是，生命所构成的所有这些基于碳的长分子比水更密。基本上任何有生命的东西都是如此。
So lots of life, you know, lives and dies and it cycles around in the surface. But over time, there's this gradual sink, things tend to sink downwards. They're not going to tend to rise upwards. So you've got this slow leakage downwards.
许多生命在表面上死去和循环，但随着时间的推移，它们逐渐向下沉淀。它们不会趋向上升。因此，你会看到这种慢慢的向下泄漏。
And so the sort of great paradox of ocean life, if you like, is that if you just let this system run, if you just let it carry on, the sunlight would all be at the top.
因此，海洋生命的一个很大的悖论就是：如果你让这个系统自然运行，光线只会停留在海水的表面。
The nutrients would all have sunk down below and nothing could happen. You're stuck. And there are some parts of the ocean where this is pretty much what happens like the out in the middle of the North Pacific, for example, the water is really, really clear because there's nothing living in it. We're very, very little living in it.
这些营养物质已经沉到海水的底部，什么事情都不会发生。你被卡住了。在海洋的某些地方，就像在北太平洋中间那样，这几乎就是发生的事情，因为那里没有任何生物，海水非常清澈。很少有生物存在。
And so you can see through it a long way, but that doesn't really help because the light energy still can't reach down to where the nutrients are. So it's kind of a desert.
因此，你可以透过它看得很远，但那并没有什么帮助，因为光能仍然无法到达营养物质所在的深处。所以它就像是一片荒漠。
But then there are places where deeper water can slither up to the surface. And these are known as regions of upwelling. There's a really famous one down the coast of Chile, where there's nutrients, the cold nutrient-rich water can slither up to the surface and reach the sunlight. And then you've got everything. Then you've got everything you need for life. And so basically the distribution of life in the ocean is entirely based on where this paradox is broken.
但是在一些地方，更深的水会滑动到表面。这些地方被称为上升区域。智利沿岸就有一个非常著名的上升区域，那里有养分，富含营养的冷水可以滑动到表面并接触到阳光。这时，你就拥有了一切。你就有了生命所需的一切。因此，海洋中的生命分布完全取决于这种矛盾被打破的地方。
The place is where nutrient-rich water breaks through to come up to the surface and then you have both nutrients and light. And so it's not the case that there are just fish everywhere. It doesn't work like that. Just like on land, there are the equivalents of rainforests and deserts and places that are very productive and places where there's almost nothing. And that's all set by where the nutrients and where the light are. And it's quite incredible.
这个地方是富含养分的水流冲破水面而出的地方，这样你既有养分又有光线。所以，并不是到处都有鱼。它不像那样运作。就像陆地上一样，有雨林和沙漠的等同物，有很多生产力的地方，也有几乎没有什么东西的地方。这全都由养分和光线的位置决定。这是非常不可思议的。
I mean, you only have to tweak this a little bit one way or the other. And you get a very different distribution of life. So where it's kind of in a happy, sort of, goldilocks bit in the middle where it just got the right amount so that the ocean is interesting, but it's not all mixed up into a big pond. But it gives the structure. That's why there are such rich fishing grounds around Iceland. It's why the Humboldt Current has this 20% of the world's fish come just from this tiny region of the ocean. It's because that's where the paradox is broken.
我的意思是，你只需要稍微调整一下，就可以得到非常不同的生命分布。因此，它在中间处呈现了一种快乐、适中的状态，海洋有趣，但又没有被混在一起。这就是为什么冰岛周围有如此丰富的渔场的原因。这也是为什么洪堡洋流中有20%的世界鱼类来自这个小海域，因为那里打破了这种悖论。
A lot of us think of finding Nemo, I think, when we think of currents and the turtles kind of traveling across the world on these highways. How accurate is that? Turtles do travel around Asian jars. I have to confess to not having watched finding Nemo. I never got around to it at the time. And now I feel like everyone's going to be asking me about it. So I probably should watch it.
当我们想到洋流时，很多人都会想起《海底总动员》中的尼莫，认为海龟会在这些海上高速公路上穿行游走，这种想法有多准确呢？事实上，海龟确实会在亚洲海域进行穿行。但我必须坦白，我没有看过《海底总动员》，当时没有机会。现在我感觉每个人都会问我这个问题，所以我可能应该看一看。
But it is the case that sea turtles can, you know, so these big slow ocean jars that kind of go around in circles. Baby sea turtles, for example, they're not strong enough to swim exactly where they want to go. But they can hitch a ride on those currents and get carried quite a long way. And then the adults have to swim back. So it is true that lots of animals actually get carried on those currents, especially when they're in their juvenile phases when they're not big enough.
有一些海龟可以使用海流来移动，就是那些慢慢旋转的大海洋罐。例如，海龟宝宝还不够强壮，无法准确游向自己的目的地，但可以搭乘这些海流，漂流很远。然后成年海龟需要游回去。因此，许多动物在幼年阶段时候会乘坐海流漂流，特别是那些体型还不够大的。
So European eels are a good example that they born in the Sargasso Sea. And they're tiny. They can't do anything. But they get carried by the Gulf Stream to Northern Europe. And then they can live in European waters, European fresh waters. And then when they're grown to adulthood, you know, perhaps 10 or 20 years later, then they're strong enough to swim back without the help of the currents. So it is absolutely true that currents carry things around. And that that's how you.
欧洲鳗鱼是一个很好的例子，它们出生于萨尔加索海。它们非常微小，无法进行任何活动。但它们被墨西哥湾流带到欧洲北部，然后可以在欧洲淡水中生活。当它们长成成年鳗鱼时，可能需要10到20年的时间，它们就足够强壮了，可以不依靠洋流游回萨尔加索海。因此，洋流确实会带走物品，这就是它们运转的方式。
And one of the messages I think is that, you know, all this stuff, it's not just randomly positioned. It's not just, oh, there happened to be some turtles over there, or there happens to be, you know, this kind of fish over there. They're there because there's a feature in the ocean engine that means that's a good place to live. And that's what shapes how their ecosystems work.
我认为其中一个要表达的信息是，你知道，所有这些东西不是随意摆放的。不仅仅是，哦，那里碰巧有一些海龟，或者那里碰巧有一些这种鱼。它们存在的原因是因为海洋引擎中有一个特征，这意味着那是一个好的生活地方。这就是塑造它们的生态系统如何工作的东西。
And in your book, you talk about messengers and passengers and voyagers. So all the different ways of kind of using and traveling along these currents. So obviously a great historical voyage of the sea. And we've got a huge maritime history and a strong relationship to the sea. But could you tell us a bit more about the other creatures that use the sea in this way and depend on this movement for their life?
你在书中提到了使者、乘客和航行者，它们是使用和沿着这些洋流行进的不同方式。显然，海上的伟大历史航行是不可忽视的。我们拥有悠久的海事历史以及与海洋的紧密关系。但是，您能否告诉我们在这种方式下使用海洋并依赖其运动为生命的其他生物呢？
Well, actually, you know, especially in the UK, we think of ourselves as a maritime nation, but we know we look at the sea. We're to. There's this phrase at the merchant marine use, which is seabloid, which is the ability to sort of talk around the sea, but never actually look at it. And we are a very seabloid nation, which is a bit weird for an island. But anyway, so messengers are things like light and sound that carry energy and information to the ocean.
嗯，事实上，特别是在英国，我们认为自己是一个海洋国家，但我们只是看海而已。我们很少正视海洋，使用的一个短语是商船用语，“seabloid”，指的是能够在海洋周围交谈，但从未真正正视它。对于一个岛国来说，我们是一个非常“seabloid”的国家，这有点奇怪。但是无论如何，信息传递到大海的载体包括光和声音等使能量和信息传递到海洋中的东西。
The passengers are the passive citizens of the ocean just get carried wherever the water takes them. The voyagers are the ones that can navigate between these features in the ocean. And they're very specifically going from one feature to another. They're not just going out into the sea to go hunting. They know where they're going, because the ocean has a predictable structure.
乘客们被动地成为海洋中的公民，只是被水流带到哪里。而航海者们则可以在海洋地形中自如航行。他们很明确地从一个地形走向另一个地形，不仅仅是出海打猎。他们知道自己要去哪里，因为海洋具有可预测的结构。
So for example, there are penguins that live in the southern ocean on a little island, or lots of islands, actually, but, you know, Kurgle and Ireland is one of them. And we all know what penguins do from. For David Attenborough shows, right? You know, there's a pair, a male female pair who were bonded, they lay an egg, then they take turns looking after the egg while the other one goes hunting. The thing about being a penguin is you're not very big, and you might be a good swimmer. You've only got a short period before you've got to come back.
例如，有一些企鹅生活在南极洋的一个小岛上， 或多个岛屿上。其中库尔格尔和爱尔兰岛就是其中之一。我们都知道，企鹅是怎样生活的，因为大卫·爱登堡展示过。一对配偶会产下一个蛋，然后轮流照看蛋，而另一个去捕鱼。作为一只企鹅，你不是很大，但你可能是一只出色的游泳者。你只有短暂的时间在海里捕鱼，然后你必须回来。
You've got to come back to let your mate take their term to feed. And so you've got to know where you're going. And so the penguins on one particular island that I write about in the book, they do know where they're going. They swim directly south for a week. And what they find is a big wall in the ocean. And it's kind of. It's like the boundary between two different types of water. And it's a place where there's loads of nutrients, there's lots of mixing.
你必须回来，让你的伴侣接替你的轮次去喂养。因此，你必须知道你要去哪里。在我书中写到的一个特定的岛上，企鹅们知道他们要去哪里。他们会直接向南游泳一周。他们会发现海洋中有一堵高墙。这就像两种不同类型水域之间的界限。那里有很多营养物质，混合得很多。
It's like a city. So it's like a city of the shape of a wall that stretches through the southern ocean. And that's where the penguins go. They go straight there. They don't bother hunting until they get there. They get there and then they dive down and then they catch lots and lots and lots of fish because that's where all the fish are. They've effectively gone to the city to go foraging. And then they feed there for a few days and then they swim for a week back to their chick or their egg. And the thing is they know it's there. They know that feature is there because the physics of the ocean has put it there, if you like.
这就像一座城市，位于南海中的一座墙形城市，企鹅就去那里。他们一路直奔那里，不会去打猎，直到到达那里。他们到那里后，会潜水捕鱼，因为那里有很多鱼。他们有效地去了这座城市寻找食物。然后在那里呆几天，然后游泳一周回到他们的幼鸟或蛋那里。他们知道那里有这个地方，因为如果你愿意这么说，海洋物理学在那里形成了这个特征。
And so the ocean is full of features like that where anything that has the ability to swim can swim to the feature it needs and can feed and then can come home and it's predictable. That's the ocean at the moment until very recently has been a predictable place. So there's no way. They're not wasting energy. They're not wasting time. They can immediately get what they need. And the story of the ocean's voyages, humans included, is full of examples like that.
因此，海洋充满了像这样的特点，任何具有游泳能力的生物都可以游向所需特征，并获得食物，然后回家，这是可预测的。直到最近，海洋都是一个可预测的地方。因此，它们不浪费能量也不浪费时间。它们可以立即得到需要的东西。海洋的旅程故事，包括人类在内，充满了像这样的例子。
And one of the possibly not voyages but passengers, I think, by your definitions is the Jantina, Jantina species that you write about in the blue machine. So this is the sea snail that blows its own little bubble raft and floats without any control on the surface of the sea. But recently these were discovered in huge volumes in something called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
在你定义的航行或乘客中，我认为可能有一种物种叫做Jantina，它出现在你在蓝色机器中写过的文章中。这是一种海螺，能自己吹出一个小气泡筏子，在海面上漂浮，没有任何控制力。但最近，这些物种在被称为“大太平洋垃圾带”的地方被大量发现。
So this is a kind of huge island of plastic formed by those giants that you were talking about before, they're kind of swirling currents. So could you tell us a bit more about the garbage patch and how the ocean's currents gathered up our rubbish and kind of dumped it all in one place? So there's a couple of things here.
这是一个由你之前提到的那些巨型漩涡形成的塑料废墟岛，非常庞大。那么你能否再多介绍一些垃圾岛的情况，以及海洋的洋流如何收集我们的垃圾并将其倾倒在一个地方的情况？这里有几个事情需要注意。
So there is this picture of the garbage patch being like a floating rubbish tip of the sort we would understand. It's not like that. There are some very large pieces of ocean trash which tend to be from fishing vessels so they're tangled up fishing nets quite often if there's been illegal fishing and they think they've been seen, they'll cut the nets and they'll drift around. So there's a small amount of very big stuff like that and you can see that every swaff and you'll see a big lump of that.
有人认为垃圾带像一个漂浮的垃圾场，就像我们所理解的那样。但实际上并不是这样的。有一些非常大的海洋垃圾，往往是来自渔船，因为存在非法捕捞，他们会把渔网割断，然后漂流。所以这垃圾带中有一小部分像这样的巨大垃圾任意漂浮，你可以看到每一个丝毫，你会看到这种大垃圾大块。
But the rest of the Pacific garbage patch is very small pieces of plastic and they tend to be up at the surface when there's a storm, they get mixed down. But we're talking about very small pieces because what happens is that it takes a long time for plastic to get from the land into the centre of a giour and on the way there's lots of UV in the sunlight and mechanical you know being hit by waves and stuff and so it breaks down into small pieces.
但是，太平洋的垃圾带中其余部分主要都是很小的塑料碎片，而当风暴发生时，它们往往会上漂，但是随后就会被混合往下沉。但是我们说的是非常小的碎片，因为事实上塑料要从陆地到达海洋中心需要很长时间，途中还要受到阳光中的紫外线和机械性波浪冲击等，因此容易分解成小碎片。
So actually in those regions of the ocean if you scoop up a pot of water you might not see anything. But within it there are tiny tiny pieces of plastic which are problematic because they look like food because very little in the ocean has a sense of taste because if it's organic you can probably eat it so they just eat whatever lumpy things they find basically. So you ask why it accumulates that?
实际上，在那些海洋地区，如果你舀起一锅水，你可能看不到任何东西。但是，其中有微小的塑料碎片，这些碎片是有问题的，因为它们看起来像食物，因为海洋中很少有物品有味觉，如果是有机物，你可能可以吃它，所以它们基本上只吃到任何肉块状物品。所以你会问为什么会积累起来呢？
Well it's because of that thing about as the giour, you know as a giour rotates water gets pushed in towards the middle because in the northern hemisphere if the currents go straight it will get pushed to the right. So things on the surface get pushed in towards the centre. Now underneath them the water is sinking down a little bit but anything that floats is just going to float at the surface it's got nowhere to go so it will drift into the centre of the giour and then there's no way for it to get out unless it goes down. And so that's why things tend to accumulate in that area.
这是因为当水流形成一个大回旋时，由于地球自转的原因，水会被推向回旋中心，尤其在北半球，水流直接走向右侧。因此，水流面上的物体会被推向回旋中心，而水流下方的水会下沉一些。但是，浮在水面上的物体没有其他去处，所以会漂向回旋中心，除非沉入水下，否则无法逃离该区域。这就是为什么物体会聚集在那个区域的原因。
And so you know there's something to be very clear about here which is that apart from the large pieces of fishing gear clearing that up is not an option and the reason it's not an option is because those tiny pieces of plastic are exactly the same size as ocean life. So if you filter them out you take out the tiny zoo plankton the things that are the gels the very fragile structures that are living in the ocean we can't vacuum the ocean. So the message of the ocean garbage patch is that what we have to do is stop putting it in.
为了让大家清楚地认识到这一点，需要明确一点，除了大型渔具外，清理塑料垃圾并不是一个可选的选择。这是因为这些微小的塑料粒子与海洋生物的大小完全相同。如果过滤它们，你会把极小的浮游生物过滤掉，这些生物是海洋中的胶状体、非常脆弱的结构，我们不能抽取大海的水。所以，海洋垃圾带给我们的信息是，我们必须停止把塑料垃圾倾倒进海中。
We can take out the big pieces of fishing gear or they actually tend to find that they've got their own ecosystems attached to them things are using them as shelter things are using them as a substrate to live on things like the snails then come along you know there's there's actually we're finding that there's life sitting on top of the plastics because you know if there's a place to live life will have a go. It does cause damage mainly because organisms eat it thinking that it's food and then they have a full stomach and they're getting no nutrition and that's a very significant problem but the solution is to stop putting it in there is there is no way those tiny tiny pieces of plastic we are there's no way to clean those out without completely destroying the living fabric of the ocean.
我们可以将渔具中的大物件取出来，但事实上，它们通常会发现这些物件上生长着自己的生态系统，其他生物会将它们作为庇护所或活动基地，比如蜗牛，因为如果有地方可以居住，生命就会尝试着占领它。然而，塑料垃圾会带来危害，因为有机体会将其当作食物吞下去但却收不到任何营养，这是一个非常严重的问题。解决方法是停止投放塑料垃圾，因为我们无法完全清除海洋生态环境中这些微小的塑料颗粒而不会完全摧毁生物之间的相互联系。
And another human impact on the ocean is from shipping but also from shipwrecks and there's that relationship between well as you say these structures that then become kind of ecosystems on their own but you also write really interestingly about how the Titanic was found so could you tell us a bit about the relationship between Rex and oceanography.
另一项人类对海洋的影响来自航运，但也来自船只失事，这与诸如你所说的这些结构成为一种生态系统之间存在着关系。你的文章中也写得非常有趣，有关如何发现泰坦尼克号，所以你能告诉我们一些关于雷克斯和海洋学之间的关系吗？
（意思是：人类的航运活动和船只失事也对海洋产生影响，这些船只的残骸会成为一种独立的生态系统。文章中也提到了泰坦尼克号的发现，那种发现和雷克斯的海洋学之间存在联系吗？）
Rex is obviously interesting historically they don't always last very long so you know everyone thought the Titanic would be in great condition when it was found because it was sitting at the bottom of a cold depotion there probably wasn't much life around they thought they thought you just sit there actually it turns out there's loads of stuff there and it's not just that the creatures of eating all the leather armchairs and things the things that are obviously organic but there's enough oxygen to rust away the ship so the Titanic is probably not going to last much longer you know maybe another 60 or 70 years and then it's just going to rust away into the ocean.
雷克斯显然在历史上很有趣，但它们并不总是能够保存很久，所以当人们发现泰坦尼克号时，大家都认为它将以极好的状态被发现，因为它沉在一个寒冷的洋底，周围可能没有什么生命。他们认为你只需要坐在那里，但实际上，结果是有大量的东西存在，不仅是明显有机的东西，比如皮革沙发等，而且还有足够的氧气来腐蚀掉船。所以泰坦尼克号可能不会再存活很久，也许只有另外60或70年，然后它就会腐蚀掉沉入海底。
So the way we find Rex obviously Rex accords generally by things the ocean has done we are land mammals we need help to go to sea we need these kind of shells these little life support systems that's what a ship is to live support system to take you into an alien environment and it's physics that determines where they end up so in the case of the Titanic for example what allowed them to find the Titanic was that when the ship broke in half which it did people were skeptical about that and then they found the two halves people didn't believe the survivors basically who said it had broken in half but they didn't find the ship what they found was the debris because as we were talking about before you know as on the surface a floating thing could float to lots of different places you know you put two things in next to each other lens up in lots of places well when you sink downwards the speed of sinking downwards depends on the size so smaller things sink more slowly and the smaller things also get moved around by the currents more and so actually there's a sort of square kilometer around the wreck of the Titanic which is full of these things that have been distributed by the currents the physics took them to lots of different places but what that meant is that when Bob Ballard on the nor actually which I was on I wrote about later in the book when they went looking for the Titanic they didn't they realized that looking for the ship was the wrong thing to do so the physics of the ocean both caused the wreck in the first place but also dictated how it was all distributed and was what allowed them to find it.
找到沉船泰坦尼克号的方法显然是通过发现大海所做的事情，我们是陆地哺乳动物，需要帮助才能到达海洋，我们需要这种壳，这些小型的生命支持系统，这就是船的生命支持系统，用来带你进入陌生的环境，物理学决定了它们最后在哪里停下来。例如，泰坦尼克号的情况，使它们能够找到泰坦尼克号的是当船舶分裂为两段时，人们对此持怀疑态度，然后他们找到了两个部分。幸存者基本上没有人相信船已经分裂成两段，但他们没有找到船，而是找到了残骸，因为正如我们之前谈论的那样，浮在水面上的东西可能漂到许多不同的地方。当你下沉时，下沉速度取决于大小，所以较小的东西下沉得更慢，并且较小的东西也会被洋流推动地更远。因此，实际上，在泰坦尼克号残骸周围的一个平方公里内，到处都是这些由洋流分布的东西，这意味着当鲍勃·巴拉德在“诺尔”号上寻找泰坦尼克号时，他们意识到寻找船是错误的，因为海洋的物理学不仅在第一时间导致了沉船，而且还决定了如何分布残骸并导致他们找到了它。
And technology have been able to map the wreck of the Titanic in these amazing 3D scans so I just wanted to finish up by asking whether there are any really exciting pieces of tech or exciting new ocean discoveries that you're looking forward to us knowing more about not necessarily in wrecks but in the ocean generally.
科技现在已经能够通过惊人的三维扫描技术绘制出泰坦尼克号的残骸，所以我想在结束时问一下，您是否期待我们能够了解更多的有关科技或海洋发现的新信息，这些信息不一定与沉船有关，但通常是与海洋有关的。
Well there's lots of things but I'll pick one and that is that in the northeast Pacific there is an underwater sort of surveillance system for on the series of underwater volcanoes and we have even though we know and the evidence is very very solid on this that the way the ocean crust forms is that two pieces of crust move apart of volcanoes in the middle basically spew out lava and it fills in the gap. We know it happens but we've never been there when it happens.
在东北太平洋中有一个水下的监测系统，用来观测一系列水下火山的活动。虽然我们已经知道海洋地壳形成的方式是两个地壳碎片分离中间的火山喷发熔岩然后填补间隙，这个证据非常坚实。但我们从未亲眼目睹这一过程。
Now there is a project in the northeast Pacific basically you know and it's kind of like it really is a surveillance system it's got cameras it's got lots of measuring devices you know they sample things it's kind of sending data home in real time. At some point that volcano is going to erupt and this time we'll actually see it and I think that you know the one of the things that they already know from the start of this system is that actually things in the depotion can change very quickly they tend to change very slowly you know things accumulate slowly they do the roads slowly but actually when you get these big explosions underwater explosions everything changes very quickly and so being able to watch that happen will be a very dramatic moment and I'm very much looking forward to that.
现在在太平洋东北部有一个项目，基本上你知道，它有一种监视系统，它有摄像头，它有许多测量设备，你知道它们会对一些东西进行采样，它们会实时地将数据传回家里。在某个时候，那个火山会爆发，这一次我们将实际看到它，我认为他们从这个系统开始就已经知道，深渊中的事情实际上可以非常快地改变，它们往往变化非常缓慢，你知道有些东西缓慢地积累，缓慢地形成，但是实际上，当你遇到这些巨大的水下爆炸时，一切都会非常快速地发生变化，因此能够观察这种情况发生将是非常戏剧性的时刻，我非常期待这一刻。
That was the physicist Helen Chesky who's new book Blue Machine about how the ocean shapes our world comes out later this week.
那位物理学家海伦·切斯基即将于本周推出她的新书《蓝色机器》，书中描述了海洋如何塑造我们的世界。
Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine.
感谢您收听由BBC Science Focus杂志团队带给您的《Instant Genius》节目。
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