全球的風暴正在變強

The most powerful storms on our planet have grown substantially stronger, and almost forty years' worth of hurricane satellite imagery suggest a warming planet might be fuelling the changes.
全球最強風暴變得更強了，近四十年的颶風衛星圖像顯示，地球變暖可能加劇了這一變化。
According to the data, the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a category 3 storm or greater, with sustained winds of over 177 kilometres per hour (110 miles per hour), has increased by about 8 percent every decade since 1979.
數據顯示，1979年以來，颶風發展成持續風速超過每小時177公里（每小時110英里）的3級或更強風暴的可能性每十年就增加約8%。
"Our results show that these storms have become stronger on global and regional levels, which is consistent with expectations of how hurricanes respond to a warming world," says climate scientist James Kossin from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
美國海洋及大氣管理局氣候科學家James Kossin說：“結果表明這些風暴在全球和地區層面都有所加強，這符合全球變暖條件下颶風的變化”。
Climate researchers have long suspected there would be an increase in stronger hurricanes, since warmer ocean temperatures and added moisture in the atmosphere tend to energise these storms.
氣候研究人員一直懷疑更強颶風會增多，因爲海洋溫度上升，大氣中水分增加，這些因素會激發風暴。
Real-world data, however, has been trickier to come by. Hurricanes – also known as tropical cyclones and typhoons, depending on where they originate – only appear sporadically, and can be difficult to study. Plus, these storms are often ignored if they don't directly impact upon on humans.
但現實中的數據更難獲得。颶風又被稱爲熱帶氣旋和颱風，名字不同是因爲發生地不同。颶風只是偶爾出現，很難研究。而且這些風暴如果沒有對人類產生直接影響，通常會被忽視。
"The main hurdle we have for finding trends is that the data are collected using the best technology at the time," says Kossin.
Kossin說：“我們瞭解發展颶風趨勢的主要障礙是蒐集數據使用的都是當時最好的技術。”
"Every year the data are a bit different than last year, each new satellite has new tools and captures data in different ways, so in the end we have a patchwork quilt of all the satellite data that have been woven together."
“每年的數據都和前一年有點差異，每個新的衛星都有新的工具，獲取數據的方式也不同。所以，最終我們把所有的衛星數據拼湊在一起。”
Thanks to computers though, which can help us to interpret satellite images of storms around the world, the team has now shown that from 1979 to 2017 there was a detectable trend toward stronger hurricanes – and this matches up consistently with greenhouse warming simulations.
但是多虧了計算機，它們能幫助我們解讀全球風暴的衛星圖像，該團隊表示從1979年到2017年有明顯的颶風變強的趨勢，這一直與溫室效應模擬相一致。