The ancient frozen dome cloaking Greenland is so vast that pilots have crashed into what they thought was a cloud bank spanning the horizon. Flying over it, you can scarcely imagine that it could erode fast enough to dangerously raise sea levels any time soon.
格陵兰岛上覆盖着的远古冰穹一望无际，许多飞行员飞过上空时都曾误以为是地平 线上的云层而俯冲失事。从空中俯瞰的话，很难想象冰穹融化速度是如此之快，过不了多久海平面就将上升至危险水平。
Along the flanks in spring and summer, however, the picture is very different. For an increasing number of warm years, a network of blue lakes and rivulets of melt-water has been spreading ever higher on the icecap.
但是，在春夏季节，冰穹两侧的景象则迥然不同。 随着温暖年份不断增多，融冰形成的蓝色冰川湖和溪涧逐渐自下而上侵蚀着冰帽/在冰穹上的海拔越来越高。
The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the sun as snow, which reflects sunlight. Natural drainpipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock.
融冰的表层发黑，吸收的太阳热量是雪的四倍，因为雪可以反射太阳光。冰川壶穴是天然排水管，融冰水通过壶穴从表层一直渗透至底层，在有些地区甚至会到达底部基 岩。
The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice towards the sea.
整个过程对冰划入海洋起着润滑和加速的作用，虽然过程缓慢，但是作用明显。
Most important, many glaciologists say, is the break-up of huge semi-submerged clots of ice where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fiords as they meet the warming ocean. As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated and frozen rivers.
在格陵兰岛的一些大型冰川特别是西海岸的冰川在进入逐渐变暖的海洋前勉强穿过峡湾，这时一些大型的半潜入水中的巨大冰体会断裂开来，许多冰川学家认为这是最重要的一环。当冰川通过峡湾后，这些缓慢流动、泛着波纹的融冰河流动速度将大大加快。
Some glaciologists fear that the rise in seas in a warming world could be much greater than the upper estimate of about 60 centimetres this century made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year. (Seas rose less than 30 centimetres last century.)
去年联合国政府间气候变化专家小组曾预测，本世纪海平面升幅上限为约 60厘米， 但是，一些冰川学家担心，随着全球变暖不断加剧，海平面升幅可能会远远高于上述预 测。（上世纪，海平面上升幅度不到 30厘米。） （上世纪，海平面上升幅度不到 30厘米。）
The panel's assessment did not include factors known to contribute to ice flows but not understood well enough to estimate with confidence. A scientific scramble is under way to clarify whether the erosion of the world's most vulnerable ice sheets, in Greenland and west Antarctica, can continue to accelerate. The effort involves field and satellite analyses and sifting for clues from past warm periods.
专家小组的预测并没有考虑到那些影响冰流的人类已知但尚未了解透彻的因素，只有对这些因素有了全面认识才能做出准确预测。 现在正在开展一些科考活动，以确定格陵兰岛和南极洲西部等冰川易融地区冰川的融化速度是否会继续加快，其中包括实地考察、卫星分析以及研究过去地球温暖周期的变化情况。
Things are definitely far more serious than anyone would have thought five years ago.
现在形势肯定比各方五年前预估的情况要严峻得多。
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