冠狀病毒會降低天氣預報的準確性

冠狀病毒會降低天氣預報的準確性

Weather forecasts may become less accurate due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to scientists.

科學家稱，由于冠狀病毒大流行，天氣預報可能變得不那么準確。

That’s because forecasters rely on delicate instruments strapped onto commercial aircraft – scores of which have been grounded by the global outbreak.

這是因為氣象預報員依賴綁在商用飛機上的精密儀器，全球疫情爆發(fā)導致許多飛機停飛。

The stark warning was issued last week by US meteorologist Ryan Finn.

美國氣象學家瑞安·芬恩上周發(fā)出了這一嚴厲警告。

In a blog post on Spectrum News, he explained how planes are vital to the creation of long-range weather predictions.

在Spectrum News的一篇博客文章中，他解釋了飛機對創(chuàng)建遠程天氣預報的重要性。

“Along with radiosondes attached to weather balloons, [atmospheric] data is collected from buoys, satellites and aircraft,” Finn said. “This includes commercial aircraft.”

芬恩說：“除了與氣象氣球相連的無線電探空儀外，(大氣)數(shù)據(jù)還從浮標、衛(wèi)星和飛機上收集。包括商用飛機。”

“Outside of satellite data, aircraft data is the most important source of data in terms of increasing forecast accuracy.”

“除了衛(wèi)星數(shù)據(jù)外，飛機數(shù)據(jù)是提高預報精度的最重要數(shù)據(jù)來源。”

Data from these readings are sent to weather agencies such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

來自這些讀數(shù)的數(shù)據(jù)被發(fā)送到氣象機構(gòu)，如美國國家海洋和大氣管理局(NOAA)。

Before the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced a third of the world’s population into lockdown and canceled most commercial flights, more than 1million weather data reports were being sent to these agencies on a daily basis.

冠狀病毒爆發(fā)迫使全球三分之一的人口進入禁閉狀態(tài)，并取消了大多數(shù)商業(yè)航班。在此之前，每天都有100多萬份天氣數(shù)據(jù)報告被發(fā)送到這些機構(gòu)。

According to Stanley Benjamin of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, that number has now dropped by more than 50 percent.

據(jù)美國國家海洋和大氣管理局地球系統(tǒng)研究實驗室的斯坦利·本杰明稱，這一數(shù)字現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)下降了50%以上。

It’s likely that this will have a significant effect on our weather forecasts, Finn said.

芬恩說，這可能會對我們的天氣預報產(chǎn)生重大影響。

Last year, a study from the European Center For Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) showed that cutting all aircraft weather data could degrade the accuracy of short-range wind and temperature forecasts by 15 percent.

去年，歐洲中期天氣預報中心(ECMWF)的一項研究表明，削減所有飛機的天氣數(shù)據(jù)可能會使短期風和溫度預報的準確性降低15%。

“I’m not trying to make an excuse for any future forecast busts, but less air traffic equals less data to incorporate into weather models meteorologists look at,” Finn wrote.

芬恩寫道：“我不想為未來的天氣預報失誤找借口，但減少空中交通量等于減少了氣象專家要納入天氣模型的數(shù)據(jù)。”。

“This could, in turn, make for a decline in forecast accuracy in the coming weeks and/or months.”

“這反過來又可能導致未來幾周和/或幾個月的預測準確性下降。”