非洲火災(zāi)產(chǎn)生的煙霧，有助于亞馬遜雨林的生存

非洲火災(zāi)產(chǎn)生的煙霧，有助于亞馬遜雨林的生存

It’s tempting to think that two locations separated by over 6,500 miles wouldn’t have much of an impact on one another, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Our planet is like a vast web and continents can play a major role in the health of another, even when separated by an ocean.

人們很容易認(rèn)為，相隔6500多英里的兩個(gè)地點(diǎn)不會(huì)對彼此造成太大影響，但事實(shí)遠(yuǎn)非如此。我們的星球就像一個(gè)巨大的網(wǎng)絡(luò)，即使被海洋隔開，大陸也能在另一個(gè)星球的健康中發(fā)揮重要作用。

That’s the message behind a new study by the Unversity of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, which reveals that fires which rage in Africa actually fertilize the Amazon rainforest in South America.

這就是邁阿密大學(xué)羅森斯蒂爾海洋與大氣科學(xué)學(xué)院的一項(xiàng)新研究背后的信息，該研究揭示了在非洲肆虐的大火實(shí)際上滋養(yǎng)了南美洲的亞馬遜雨林。

The study, which was published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggests the Atlantic and Southern oceans benefit greatly from the smoke of African fires.

這項(xiàng)發(fā)表在《美國國家科學(xué)院院刊》(Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences)上的研究還表明，大西洋和南部海洋從非洲大火的煙霧中受益匪淺。

The researchers made their determination based on an examination of the airborne particles sent high into the atmosphere from fires in Africa. Those particles are carried aloft for thousands of miles but eventually come back down and the phosphorus they carry is vital to the thriving life in the Amazon rainforest as well as marine plankton in the oceans between the two continents.

研究人員是在對非洲大火釋放到大氣中的空氣微粒進(jìn)行檢測的基礎(chǔ)上做出這一決定的。這些顆粒被帶到數(shù)千英里的高空，但最終會(huì)回到地面，它們攜帶的磷對亞馬遜雨林的繁榮生活以及兩大洲之間海洋中的浮游生物至關(guān)重要。

“It had been assumed that Saharan dust was the main fertilizer to the Amazon Basin and Tropical Atlantic Ocean by supplying phosphorus to both of these ecosystems,” Cassandra Gaston, senior author of the study, said in a statement.

該研究的資深作者卡桑德拉·加斯頓在一份聲明中說：“人們曾認(rèn)為撒哈拉沙漠的沙塵，向亞馬遜盆地和熱帶大西洋的主要肥料這兩個(gè)生態(tài)系統(tǒng)提供磷。”

“Our findings reveal that biomass burning emissions transported from Africa are potentially a more important source of phosphorus to these ecosystems than dust.”

“我們的研究結(jié)果表明，從非洲運(yùn)來的生物質(zhì)燃燒排放物，可能是這些生態(tài)系統(tǒng)中比灰塵更重要的磷來源。”

This is particularly important since the wealth of plant life in both the Amazon and the oceans play a major role in soaking up carbon dioxide and ensuring that plant life is healthy, which is vital to the Earth at large. It’s estimated that the Amazon rainforest alone absorbs as much as 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.

這一點(diǎn)特別重要，因?yàn)閬嗰R遜和海洋中豐富的植物在吸收二氧化碳和確保植物健康方面發(fā)揮著重要作用，而植物健康對整個(gè)地球至關(guān)重要。據(jù)估計(jì)，僅亞馬遜雨林每年就吸收多達(dá)22億噸的二氧化碳。

“These new findings have implications for how this process might look in the future as combustion and fire emissions in Africa and dust transport patterns change with a changing climate and an increasing human population,” Gaston noted.

加斯頓指出:“隨著氣候變化和人口增加，非洲的燃燒和火災(zāi)排放以及灰塵運(yùn)輸模式發(fā)生變化，這些新發(fā)現(xiàn)將對這一過程的未來發(fā)展產(chǎn)生影響。”