国家地理:不再冻人的五大湖(2)

（单词翻译）

But what Leavitt was doing the February day was a rare occurrence last winter across the Great Lakes. The long-term average for ice coverage¹ on all five Great Lakes -- Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario -- is 54 percent. Last winter, ice covered only 19.5% of the lake's surface is a near record low.

但这个二月天拉维特所做的事，在去年冬天的五大湖一带却不常见。长期以来，苏必利尔湖、密歇根湖、伊利湖、休伦湖、安大略湖这五大湖的平均覆冰量是54%。去年冬天却仅有19.5%的湖面有冰覆盖，几乎是创纪录地低。

Some lakes in the region didn't freeze at all. Others saw only faint traces of ice around their edges, or froze briefly². The weekend before Leavitt's outing, temperatures in the region shot up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit³, and ice anglers slogged through slush in T-shirts.

这一带有些湖泊根本没有结冻。另一些则只在湖岸边有些微的冰，或只是暂时结冰。拉维特去冰钓前的那个周末，该地区的气温冲上了40华氏度，冰钓客是穿着T恤在雪泥中行走的。

One overly warm season isn't necessarily a harbinger of inevitable⁴. But increasingly, scientists can pick out patterns in the scattershot records of change from across the Great Lakes, and those patterns are pointing toward a sobering conclusion: The 2019/2020 winter, with its faint traces of ice, is likely just a taste of the future.

一次温暖过头的冬季，不见得就预示了未来必定是如此。但是科学家也越来越能从五大湖各地散乱的变化纪录中看出模式，而这些模式全都指向一个令人警醒的结论：只有少许湖冰的2019至2020年冬季，可能只是让人提早体验未来。