“If we don’t like it, then we need to work harder to reduce emissions,” warned the University of British Columbia scientist who calculated the massive toll.

“如果我们不喜欢这种情况,那么我们需要更努力地减少排放,”不列颠哥伦比亚大学的一位科学家警告说,他计算出了这个巨大的数字。

An estimated 1 billion sea creatures cooked to death off the Canadian coast in the record heat wave last week that also scorched America’s Pacific Northwest and claimed hundreds of human lives.

上周,在创纪录的热浪中,估计有10亿海洋生物在加拿大海岸被烤死,也烧焦了美国西北太平洋地区,并造成数百人死亡。
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Chris Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia, calculated the massive toll on mussels and other marine animals that died in the heat along the Salish Sea off Vancouver. The inland Pacific body of water stretches from the Campbell River north of Vancouver down to Seattle and Olympia in Washington state.

不列颠哥伦比亚大学的海洋生物学家克里斯·哈利,计算了温哥华附近萨利什海沿岸因高温而死亡的贻贝和其他海洋动物的数量。这片太平洋内陆水域,从温哥华北部的坎贝尔河,一直延伸到华盛顿州的西雅图和奥林匹亚。

As he discovered endless rows of gaping dead mussels, along with dead clams, snails, sea stars and barnacles on Vancouver’s Kitsilano Beach in late June, Harley said he was “stunned.”

6月底,当哈利在温哥华的基茨拉诺海滩上,发现了一排排张着嘴的死贻贝、死蛤、蜗牛、海星和藤壶时,他说自己“惊呆了”。

The scientist says mussels are the “poster child” indicator of the heat’s devastation on the ocean. They’re the most vulnerable because they can’t move to cooler water.

这位科学家说,贻贝是高温对海洋造成破坏的“典型代表”。它们是最脆弱的,因为它们无法移动到温度较低的水域。

“A mussel on the shore in some ways is like a toddler left in a car on a hot day,” Harley told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “They are stuck there until the parent comes back or, in this case, the tide comes back in. They’re at the mercy of the environment ... during the heat wave, it just got so hot that the mussels, there was nothing they could do.”

哈利告诉加拿大广播公司说:“在某种程度上,海岸上的贻贝就像炎热天气里被丢在汽车里的蹒跚学步的孩子,它们被困在那里,直到父母回来,对于贻贝而言,就是等待潮水回来。”它们受环境的摆布。在热浪来袭期间,天气变得非常热,贻贝也束手无策。”

Mussels can tolerate temperatures as high as 86 degrees Fahrenheit for short periods of time. But Harley and a colleague using a thermal imaging camera found temperatures as high as 122 degrees along the rocky shoreline of the Salish Sea.

贻贝可以短期忍受最高86华氏度(30℃)的高温。但哈利和他的同事使用热成像相机发现,沿萨利希海的岩石海岸线,温度高达122华氏度(50℃)。

Such a massive die-off has a major effect on the environment. Mussels, which are in the in the middle of the food chain, provide a key transition between shore and ocean. They filter out particles and make water clearer, and they provide important nutrition to other animals, such as starfish and sea ducks.

如此大规模的灭绝对环境有重大影响。贻贝处于食物链的中间,是海岸和海洋之间的关键过渡。它们可以过滤颗粒物,使水更清澈,还为其他动物提供重要的营养,比如海星和海鸭。

“They grab plankton that’s floating around in the water and use it to grow, and then they feed other things on the shore so they sort of connect the open water habitat to the shoreline,” Harley explained to the Toronto Star.

哈利向《多伦多星报》解释说:“它们抓住漂浮在水中的浮游生物并利用后者生长,然后它们喂养岸上的其他东西,所以它们把开阔水域的栖息地和海岸线连接了起来。”

Harley said similar discoveries of dead shellfish have already been made in areas of Washington state. He plans to visit the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island to check seashore deaths from the crushing heat in those areas.

哈利说,华盛顿州的一些地区也发现了类似的贝类死亡的情况。他计划访问海湾群岛和温哥华岛,核实这些地区死于酷暑的海滨生物。

Such deadly heat waves are more likely to happen more frequently and with even more extreme temperatures due to climate change, Harley warned.

哈雷警告说,由于气候变化,这种致命的热浪更有可能发生得更频繁,温度甚至更极端。

“Eventually, we just won’t be able to sustain these populations of filter feeders on the shoreline to be anywhere near the extent that we’re used to,” he said.

他说:“最终,我们将无法在海岸线上维持这些滤食性动物的数量,使其达到曾经的程度。”

The deaths are just the latest dramatic sign that the environment is suffering severe consequences from climate change, Harley said.

哈利说,这些死亡事件只是最新的戏剧性迹象,表明环境正遭受气候变化的严重后果。

“If we don’t like it, then we need to work harder to reduce emissions and take other measures to reduce the effects of climate change,” he told the CBC.

“如果我们不喜欢这种情况,那么我们需要更努力地减少排放,并采取其他措施来减少气候变化的影响,”他告诉加拿大广播公司。

Thousands of mussels cooked to death on a shore in Northern California after record heat in 2019. It was believed to be the worst heat die-off there in 15 years.

2019年,在创纪录的高温之后,数千只贻贝在北加州海岸被烤死。当时曾被认为是15年一遇的最严重的炎热致死事件。