非洲火灾产生的烟雾，有助于亚马逊雨林的生存

It’s tempting to think that two locations separated by over 6,500 miles wouldn’t have much of an impact on one another, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Our planet is like a vast web and continents can play a major role in the health of another, even when separated by an ocean.

人们很容易认为，相隔6500多英里的两个地点不会对彼此造成太大影响，但事实远非如此。我们的星球就像一个巨大的网络，即使被海洋隔开，大陆也能在另一个星球的健康中发挥重要作用。

That’s the message behind a new study by the Unversity of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, which reveals that fires which rage in Africa actually fertilize the Amazon rainforest in South America.

这就是迈阿密大学罗森斯蒂尔海洋与大气科学学院的一项新研究背后的信息，该研究揭示了在非洲肆虐的大火实际上滋养了南美洲的亚马逊雨林。

The study, which was published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggests the Atlantic and Southern oceans benefit greatly from the smoke of African fires.

这项发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》(Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences)上的研究还表明，大西洋和南部海洋从非洲大火的烟雾中受益匪浅。

The researchers made their determination based on an examination of the airborne particles sent high into the atmosphere from fires in Africa. Those particles are carried aloft for thousands of miles but eventually come back down and the phosphorus they carry is vital to the thriving life in the Amazon rainforest as well as marine plankton in the oceans between the two continents.

研究人员是在对非洲大火释放到大气中的空气微粒进行检测的基础上做出这一决定的。这些颗粒被带到数千英里的高空，但最终会回到地面，它们携带的磷对亚马逊雨林的繁荣生活以及两大洲之间海洋中的浮游生物至关重要。

“It had been assumed that Saharan dust was the main fertilizer to the Amazon Basin and Tropical Atlantic Ocean by supplying phosphorus to both of these ecosystems,” Cassandra Gaston, senior author of the study, said in a statement.

该研究的资深作者卡桑德拉·加斯顿在一份声明中说：“人们曾认为撒哈拉沙漠的沙尘，向亚马逊盆地和热带大西洋的主要肥料这两个生态系统提供磷。”

“Our findings reveal that biomass burning emissions transported from Africa are potentially a more important source of phosphorus to these ecosystems than dust.”

“我们的研究结果表明，从非洲运来的生物质燃烧排放物，可能是这些生态系统中比灰尘更重要的磷来源。”

This is particularly important since the wealth of plant life in both the Amazon and the oceans play a major role in soaking up carbon dioxide and ensuring that plant life is healthy, which is vital to the Earth at large. It’s estimated that the Amazon rainforest alone absorbs as much as 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.

这一点特别重要，因为亚马逊和海洋中丰富的植物在吸收二氧化碳和确保植物健康方面发挥着重要作用，而植物健康对整个地球至关重要。据估计，仅亚马逊雨林每年就吸收多达22亿吨的二氧化碳。

“These new findings have implications for how this process might look in the future as combustion and fire emissions in Africa and dust transport patterns change with a changing climate and an increasing human population,” Gaston noted.

加斯顿指出:“随着气候变化和人口增加，非洲的燃烧和火灾排放以及灰尘运输模式发生变化，这些新发现将对这一过程的未来发展产生影响。”