譯/田思怡 The Arctic Ocean may seem remote and forbidding, but to birds, whales and other animals, it's a top-notch dining destination.
"It's a great place to get food in the summertime, so animals are flying or swimming thousands of miles to get there," said Kevin R. Arrigo, a biological oceanographer at Stanford University.
北極海或許顯得遙遠又難以親近，但對鳥類、鯨魚和一些其他動物來說，可是頂級的用餐地點。
史丹福大學生物海洋學家凱文．阿里戈說：「北極海是夏天捕食很棒的地方，因此，各種動物從幾千英里外飛來或游來。」
But the menu is changing. Confirming earlier research, scientists reported Wednesday that global warming is altering the ecology of the Arctic Ocean on a huge scale.
The annual production of algae, the base of the food web, increased an estimated 47 percent between 1997 and 2015, and the ocean is greening up much earlier each year.
但菜單正在改變。科學家周三提出的報告證實了先前研究的結論，全球暖化正極大規模的改變北極海的生態。
藻類是食物網的基底，在1997年到2015年之間每年產量大約增加了47%，而北極海的綠化也每一年都比前一年提早許多。
These changes are likely to have a profound impact for animals further up the food chain, such as birds, seals, polar bears and whales. But scientists still don't know enough about the biology of the Arctic Ocean to predict what the ecosystem will look like in decades to come.
While global warming has affected the whole planet in recent decades, nowhere has been hit harder than the Arctic. Last month, temperatures in the high Arctic were as much as 36 degrees above average, according to records kept by the Danish Meteorological Institute.
這些改變可能對食物鏈更上層的動物有更深遠的影響，例如鳥類、海豹、北極熊和鯨魚。然而，科學家對北極海生物學的知識仍不足以預測未來幾十年當地生態系統的樣貌。
全球暖化近幾十年已影響整個地球，然而沒有一個地方比北極所受影響更大。根據丹麥氣象研究所的紀錄，上個月，高北極的氣溫最高時要比平均溫度高出華氏36度。
In October, the extent of sea ice was 28.5 percent below average — the lowest for the month since scientists began keeping records in 1979. The area of missing ice is the size of Alaska and Texas put together.
Since the mid-2000s, researchers like Arrigo have been trying to assess the effects of retreating ice on the Arctic ecosystem.
10月間，海冰的範圍比平均值縮小了28.5%，是自1979年科學家開始記錄以來海冰面積最小的10月。減少的海冰面積相當於阿拉斯加州和德州的總和。
自2000年代中葉以來，阿里戈之屬研究人員一直試圖評估海冰消退對北極生態的影響。
The sun returns to the Arctic each spring and melts some of the ice that formed in winter. Algae in the open water quickly spring to life and start growing.
These algae are the base of the food chain in the Arctic Ocean, grazed by krill and other invertebrates that in turn support bigger fish, mammals and birds.
每年春天太陽回到北極，使得一部分冬天形成的冰融化。開放水域的藻類緊跟著恢復生機，開始生長。
這些藻類是北極海食物鏈的最底層，磷蝦和其他無脊椎動物以它為食物，而這些動物又成為更大的魚、哺乳動物和鳥類的食物。
Arrigo and his colleagues visited the Arctic in research ships to examine algae in the water and to determine how it affected the water's color. They then reviewed satellite images of the Arctic Ocean, relying on the color of the water to estimate how much algae was growing — what scientists call the ocean's productivity.
The sea's productivity was rapidly increasing, Arrigo found. Last year he and his colleagues published their latest update, estimating that the productivity of the Arctic rose 30 percent between 1998 and 2012.
阿里戈和他的同事搭乘研究船造訪北極，研究海中的藻類，並判定藻類如何影響海水的顏色。然後他們再檢視北極海的衛星畫面，根據海水的顏色估計藻類生長的量──科學家稱之為北極海的生產力。
阿里戈發現，北極海的生產力快速增加。去年他和他的同事發表他們最新的更新報告，估計北極海的生產力在1998年到2012年間提高30%。
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