万物简史 第379期:进入对流层(20)

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　　This should have resulted in a much warmer Earth. 因此，地球本该比现在热得多。

　　Indeed, as the English geologist¹ Aubrey Manning has put it, 实际上，正如英国地质学家奥布里·曼宁说的：

　　"This colossal² change should have had an absolutely catastrophic effect on the Earth and yet it appears that our world has hardly been affected³." “这个巨大的变化本地地球带来绝对灾难性的后果，然而，我们的世界好像几乎没有受到影响。”

　　So what keeps the world stable and cool? Life does. 那么，是什么使这颗行星保持稳定，保持凉快的呢？是生命。

　　Trillions upon trillions of tiny marine⁴ organisms that most of us have never heard of—foraminiferans and coccoliths and calcareous algae⁵, 那些生物是我们大多数人连听都没有听说过的，什么有孔虫呀，球石呀，钙质藻呀，等等。

　　capture atmospheric⁶ carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, when it falls as rain and use it (in combination with other things) to make their tiny shells. 当空气里以二氧化碳形式存在的碳随着雨水落下的时候，无数万亿个小小的海洋生物将其捕捉，并利用它（与别的东西一起）来制造自己小小的壳。

　　By locking the carbon up in their shells, they keep it from being reevaporated into the atmosphere, where it would build up dangerously as a greenhouse gas. 它们把碳关在壳里，防止碳通过再次蒸发进人大气，要不然它会危险地形成一种温室气体，

　　Eventually all the tiny foraminiferans and coccoliths and so on die and fall to the bottom of the sea, where they are compressed into limestone⁷. 最后，小小的有孔虫、球在等等都死了，掉到海底。被压缩成了灰岩。

　　It is remarkable⁸, when you behold⁹ an extraordinary natural feature like the White Cliffs of Dover in England, 要是你望一眼像英格兰多佛尔的白垩这样非凡的自然特色，

　　to reflect that it is made up of nothing but tiny deceased marine organisms, 想一想它几乎完全是由死去的小小的海洋生物造成的，这真令人觉得不可思议；

　　but even more remarkable when you realize how much carbon they cumulatively¹⁰ sequester¹¹. 但是，更加令人不可思议的是，你要知道，那些生物日积月累地吸收了多少碳呀。

　　A six-inch cube of Dover chalk will contain well over a thousand liters of compressed carbon dioxide 一块15立方厘米的多佛尔白垩就含有1000多升的压缩二氧化碳。

　　that would otherwise be doing us no good at all. 要不然，这些二氧化碳根本不会对我们有好处。

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