冠状病毒会降低天气预报的准确性

冠状病毒会降低天气预报的准确性

Weather forecasts may become less accurate due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to scientists.

科学家称，由于冠状病毒大流行，天气预报可能变得不那么准确。

That’s because forecasters rely on delicate instruments strapped onto commercial aircraft – scores of which have been grounded by the global outbreak.

这是因为气象预报员依赖绑在商用飞机上的精密仪器，全球疫情爆发导致许多飞机停飞。

The stark warning was issued last week by US meteorologist Ryan Finn.

美国气象学家瑞安·芬恩上周发出了这一严厉警告。

In a blog post on Spectrum News, he explained how planes are vital to the creation of long-range weather predictions.

在Spectrum News的一篇博客文章中，他解释了飞机对创建远程天气预报的重要性。

“Along with radiosondes attached to weather balloons, [atmospheric] data is collected from buoys, satellites and aircraft,” Finn said. “This includes commercial aircraft.”

芬恩说：“除了与气象气球相连的无线电探空仪外，(大气)数据还从浮标、卫星和飞机上收集。包括商用飞机。”

“Outside of satellite data, aircraft data is the most important source of data in terms of increasing forecast accuracy.”

“除了卫星数据外，飞机数据是提高预报精度的最重要数据来源。”

Data from these readings are sent to weather agencies such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

来自这些读数的数据被发送到气象机构，如美国国家海洋和大气管理局(NOAA)。

Before the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced a third of the world’s population into lockdown and canceled most commercial flights, more than 1million weather data reports were being sent to these agencies on a daily basis.

冠状病毒爆发迫使全球三分之一的人口进入禁闭状态，并取消了大多数商业航班。在此之前，每天都有100多万份天气数据报告被发送到这些机构。

According to Stanley Benjamin of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, that number has now dropped by more than 50 percent.

据美国国家海洋和大气管理局地球系统研究实验室的斯坦利·本杰明称，这一数字现在已经下降了50%以上。

It’s likely that this will have a significant effect on our weather forecasts, Finn said.

芬恩说，这可能会对我们的天气预报产生重大影响。

Last year, a study from the European Center For Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) showed that cutting all aircraft weather data could degrade the accuracy of short-range wind and temperature forecasts by 15 percent.

去年，欧洲中期天气预报中心(ECMWF)的一项研究表明，削减所有飞机的天气数据可能会使短期风和温度预报的准确性降低15%。

“I’m not trying to make an excuse for any future forecast busts, but less air traffic equals less data to incorporate into weather models meteorologists look at,” Finn wrote.

芬恩写道：“我不想为未来的天气预报失误找借口，但减少空中交通量等于减少了气象专家要纳入天气模型的数据。”。

“This could, in turn, make for a decline in forecast accuracy in the coming weeks and/or months.”

“这反过来又可能导致未来几周和/或几个月的预测准确性下降。”