Alaskans will be flying blind after NSF decommissions ocean monitoring network
Alaskans will be flying blind after NSF decommissions ocean monitoring network
美国国家科学基金会（NSF）撤除海洋监测网络，阿拉斯加州将面临“盲飞”困境
The upcoming loss of a deep-ocean monitoring system is triggering deep anxiety in Alaska, the nation’s top fish-producing state, where temperatures are warming twice as quickly as the global average. 随着深海监测系统即将被撤除，美国最大的渔业生产州阿拉斯加正陷入深深的焦虑之中。该地区的气温上升速度是全球平均水平的两倍。
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced plans in May to decommission the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a nearly $368 million network of scientific instruments that tracks ocean chemistry, wave action, water temperature, salinity, and a host of other metrics. 美国国家科学基金会（NSF）于今年5月宣布，计划撤除“海洋观测倡议”（Ocean Observatories Initiative）。该网络耗资近3.68亿美元，由一系列科学仪器组成，用于追踪海洋化学成分、波浪活动、水温、盐度以及其他多种指标。
The real-time information from these ocean observatories helps scientists, fishery managers, coastal hazard planners, and even the military plan and prepare for the future. Whether that’s calculating how much fish can be harvested or when a marine heatwave or giant wave action may be occurring, the data is used by a plethora of sources. 这些海洋观测站提供的实时信息，能够帮助科学家、渔业管理者、沿海灾害规划人员甚至军方进行规划并为未来做好准备。无论是计算捕鱼量，还是预测海洋热浪或巨浪的发生，这些数据都被广泛应用于各个领域。
“It helps us see where we’re going and what’s coming at us,” said Jan Newton, University of Washington affiliate professor of biological oceanography. 华盛顿大学生物海洋学附属教授简·牛顿（Jan Newton）表示：“它能帮助我们看清前进的方向，以及即将面临的挑战。”
The NSF’s decision to pull the observatories from the water has alarm bells ringing in fishing circles of Alaska, home to a $5.3 billion commercial seafood industry that employs nearly 42,000 people, according to a recent report that McKinley Research Group prepared for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. 根据麦金利研究集团（McKinley Research Group）为阿拉斯加海产品营销协会撰写的一份最新报告，阿拉斯加拥有价值53亿美元的商业海产品产业，雇佣了近4.2万名员工。NSF撤除观测站的决定，在该州的渔业界敲响了警钟。
Michelle Stratton, executive director of the Alaska Marine Community Coalition, said the loss of Ocean Station Papa, the deep-ocean observing system situated in the Gulf of Alaska at a depth of nearly 14,000 feet, means the state will lose one of its only systems that documents how the ocean is changing in real time. 阿拉斯加海洋社区联盟执行董事米歇尔·斯特拉顿（Michelle Stratton）表示，失去“帕帕海洋站”（Ocean Station Papa）意味着该州将失去仅有的几个能够实时记录海洋变化的系统之一。该深海观测系统位于阿拉斯加湾，深度近14,000英尺。
“We’re in the middle of salmon crashes, crab collapses, and repeated marine heatwaves, and this decision takes away the data we rely on to understand what’s happening and how to manage these fisheries,” Stratton said. 斯特拉顿说：“我们正处于鲑鱼资源锐减、螃蟹种群崩溃以及海洋热浪频发的困境中，而这一决定剥夺了我们赖以了解现状并管理这些渔业的关键数据。”
As for why NSF is pulling the scientific hardware, spokesperson Cassandra Eichner said the decision “aligns with the NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.” 关于NSF为何撤除这些科学设备，发言人卡桑德拉·艾希纳（Cassandra Eichner）表示，该决定“符合NSF更广泛的战略，即采取更灵活的方法，优先支持不断发展的科学重点和新兴技术，并对其研究基础设施组合进行智能化的生命周期管理。”
All previously collected data will remain accessible, and the NSF remains committed to ocean science, Eichner said. 艾希纳表示，此前收集的所有数据仍可访问，NSF也将继续致力于海洋科学研究。
But critics say the decision to take down the ocean observatory network, which consists of some 900 deep-sea instruments distributed across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, aligns with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for governing prepared by the Heritage Foundation and, to some extent, enacted by the Trump administration. 但批评人士指出，撤除海洋观测网络的决定——该网络由分布在太平洋和大西洋的约900台深海仪器组成——与“2025计划”（Project 2025）相吻合。这是一份由传统基金会（Heritage Foundation）制定的保守派治理蓝图，并在一定程度上被特朗普政府所采纳。
Project 2025 cast government-sponsored oceanic and atmospheric research as a regular source of “climate alarmism,” particularly within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its various agencies. “2025计划”将政府资助的海洋和大气研究视为“气候危言耸听”的常规来源，特别是在美国国家海洋和大气管理局（NOAA）及其下属机构中。
The oceans are one of the most unexplored, unmeasured, and, ultimately, poorly understood regions of Earth, said Rick Thoman, climate specialist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who spent 30 years at the National Weather Service. 阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校的气候专家里克·托曼（Rick Thoman）表示，海洋是地球上最未被探索、未被测量，且最终也是最不被理解的区域之一。托曼曾在国家气象局工作了30年。
What the Ocean Observatories Initiative does, Thoman said, is to shed light on what’s happening in the deep, dark depths of the underwater world, not just at the surface. 托曼说，“海洋观测倡议”的作用在于揭示水下深处正在发生的事情，而不仅仅是关注海面。
“Losing the information provided by Ocean Station Papa on how the ocean is changing with a warming climate is like driving down a dark freeway with no lights on,” said Carol Janzen, oceanographer with the Alaska Ocean Observing System. 阿拉斯加海洋观测系统的海洋学家卡罗尔·詹森（Carol Janzen）表示：“失去帕帕海洋站提供的关于气候变暖如何改变海洋的信息，就像在没有灯光的黑暗高速公路上开车一样。”
Since Alaska has suffered intensive marine heatwaves in recent years, along with population crashes of species like Chinook salmon and snow crab, the last thing managers and scientists want to see is the loss of deep-ocean monitoring data, Thoman said. “The value of this network is that you get oceanographic information from the entire water column,” he added. 托曼表示，由于阿拉斯加近年来遭受了严重的海洋热浪，加上奇努克鲑鱼和雪蟹等物种的种群崩溃，管理者和科学家最不希望看到的就是深海监测数据的丢失。他补充道：“这个网络的价值在于，你可以获得整个水柱的海洋学信息。”
Fast-warming Alaska has been battered by intense storms of late, including Typhoon Halong, which largely destroyed the Western Alaska villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok last October. 快速变暖的阿拉斯加近期遭受了强风暴的袭击，包括去年10月摧毁了阿拉斯加西部基普努克（Kipnuk）和奎吉林诺克（Kwigillingok）村庄大部分地区的台风“哈隆”（Halong）。
The mostly Yupik villages were home to more than 1,000 people, many of whom evacuated to Anchorage and are still living there while decisions are made about what to do next: rebuild or move to higher ground. The state is also preparing for El Niño conditions later this summer. 这些主要由尤皮克人（Yupik）居住的村庄曾有1000多名居民，其中许多人撤离到了安克雷奇，目前仍住在那里，等待关于下一步行动的决定：是重建还是搬迁到地势更高的地方。该州也在为今年夏末可能出现的厄尔尼诺现象做准备。
Ocean Station Papa’s sensors and other instruments help weather forecasters and emergency response officials know ahead of time when super-storms like Halong are about to come barreling through. 帕帕海洋站的传感器和其他仪器能够帮助天气预报员和应急响应官员提前预知像“哈隆”这样的超级风暴何时会来袭。
“We’re looking at ocean temperatures, salinity, current, wave height and direction, wind stress,” Stratton said. “Those all feed into models that NOAA and universities use to tell us how storm systems intensify, how water levels along the coast are rising or falling, where and when we should expect the next big flooding event.” 斯特拉顿说：“我们监测海洋温度、盐度、洋流、波高和方向以及风应力。所有这些数据都会输入到NOAA和大学使用的模型中，以告诉我们风暴系统如何增强、沿海水位如何升降，以及我们应该在何时何地预见下一次大洪水事件。”
The loss of Ocean Station Papa could make Alaska’s isolated, largely Indigenous coastal villages even more vulnerable. 失去帕帕海洋站可能会使阿拉斯加那些与世隔绝、以原住民为主的沿海村庄变得更加脆弱。
“We’re seeing diseases directly linked to food security, income, intergenerational knowledge, community stability. So we’re not looking at just the biological crisis. It’s economic. It’s cultural. It’s a way of life, too,” Stratton added. 斯特拉顿补充道：“我们看到的疾病直接关系到粮食安全、收入、代际知识和社区稳定。所以我们面对的不仅仅是生物危机，它还是经济危机、文化危机，甚至是一种生活方式的危机。”
For longtime fisheries advocate Tim Bristol, executive director of the nonprofit SalmonState, pulling monitoring instruments out of the ocean seems counterintuitive. 对于长期从事渔业倡导工作的非营利组织“SalmonState”执行董事蒂姆·布里斯托（Tim Bristol）来说，将监测仪器从海洋中撤出似乎违背常理。
“No matter where you are on a particular issue, you hear a desire, a call for more information, better data, more in-depth analysis, and this seems to be, you know, a sprint in the wrong direction,” Bristol said. 布里斯托说：“无论你在某个问题上持什么立场，你都会听到对更多信息、更好数据和更深入分析的渴望与呼吁。而这（撤除监测站）似乎是在朝着错误的方向狂奔。”
Thoman, the weather and climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that may be true. But even if the United States, a longtime leader in the science… 阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校的气候专家托曼表示，这或许是真的。但即便美国作为长期的科学领导者……