科学美国人60秒 SSS 新冠肺炎如何降低天气预报准确率（在线收听）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Julia Rosen.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是朱莉娅·罗森。

Here are two things that you probably didn't think were connected: the COVID-19 pandemic and weather forecasts.

有两件事你可能认为没有关联：新冠肺炎疫情和天气预报。

But there is a link: commercial air travel.

但二者存在一个关联：商业航空旅行。

As jetliners carry passengers around the world, they also collect vital weather measurements, like air temperature and wind speed.

当喷气客机在世界各地运送乘客时，它们也收集气温和风速等重要的天气数值。

During the pandemic, however, air travel has come almost to a halt.

然而，在疫情期间，航空旅行几乎停滞。

"In February, let's say, we have 100 percent. And then in March we go down by half. And April go down by another half.

“2月份，比如我们有100%。之后在3月份减少了一半。4月又降了一半。

So currently, possibly, we just have one quarter of aircraft running. So you can imagine the gap of observations."

因此，现在，我们可能只有四分之一的飞机在运行。你可以想象观察值的差距。”

Ying Chen, a meteorologist at the University of Lancaster in England.

英国兰卡斯特大学的气象学家Ying Chen说到。

To create weather forecasts, meteorologists need to feed accurate information about current weather conditions into their models.

为了制作天气预报，气象学家需要将当前天气状况的准确信息输入到他们的模型中。

And planes are one of the best ways to get such info, since they sample the atmosphere at different altitudes and locations.

飞机是获取这些信息的最佳途径之一，因为它们在不同海拔和位置采集大气样本。

But with the coronavirus grounding flights around the world, meteorologists are feeling the loss.

但随着冠状病毒导致全球飞机停飞，气象学家感受到了损失。

"I analyzed three months of spring, which is March, April and May. And I see temperature, wind speed—forecast accuracy all goes down."

“我分析了春季的三个月，即三月、四月和五月。我看到温度和风速的预报准确率都下降了。”

Forecast quality declined the most for long-range projections and over remote areas where planes are one of the few sources of data.

预报质量下降最严重的是远程预测和偏远地区预测，而飞机是偏远地区为数不多的数据来源之一。

In Greenland, for example, the accuracy of temperature forecasts has decreased by as much as 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

例如，在格陵兰岛，温度预报的准确率下降了3.5华氏度之多。

Areas with heavy air traffic, like the U.S. and China, were also affected because fewer flights means less data.

美国和中国等空中交通繁忙的地区也受到了影响，因为航班减少意味着数据减少。

Europe made out better, thanks to its dense network of ground-based weather stations.

得益于密集的地面气象站网络，欧洲天气预报的情况更好。

The results are in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

研究结果发表在《地球物理研究快报》期刊上。

Subpar forecasts may sound like little more than a headache. After all, weather is notoriously unpredictable.

低于标准的预测听起来可能只不过是令人头疼的问题。毕竟，天气是出了名的难以预测。

But Chen says it could be a big problem for many industries—like utilities, which have to estimate household heating and cooling needs in order to meet electricity demand.

但Chen表示，这对公用事业等许多行业来说可能是个大问题，因为这些行业必须估算家庭取暖和制冷需求来满足电力需求。

Farmers also rely heavily on forecasts to decide when to plant and harvest crops.

农民也严重依赖天气预报来决定何时种植和收获庄稼。

And Chen says that lower-quality forecasts could make it harder to provide early warning for extreme weather events.

Chen表示，低质量的天气预报可能会使极端天气事件预警更难提供。

"Now we are going into summer, so we have hurricane season or monsoon seasons."

“现在我们已进入夏季，因此会有飓风季或季风季。”

If so, we can only hope that while the COVID keeps the skies quiet, the weather stays quiet, too.

如果这样，我们只能希望新冠肺炎让天空保持宁静的同时，天气也能保持平和。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Julia Rosen.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是朱莉娅·罗森。