Scientists Grab First Glimpse Deep Underneath Antarctica's Unstable Thwaites Glacier

科学家们首次瞥见南极洲不稳定的斯韦茨冰川深处

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier hasn't been doing so well. It's close to irreversibly melting, it has a huge cavity growing underneath it, and it's the poster child for everything wrong with our reliance on fossil fuels.

南极洲斯韦茨冰川的状况一直不太好。它几乎是不可逆的融化，冰川下面有一个巨大的空洞，是我们依赖化石燃料而犯下的一切错误的发源地。

But a robotic underwater vehicle called Icefin just snapped the first pictures of Thwaites' foundations of the ocean floor, and the results are surprisingly peaceful.

但一个名为“Icefin”的水下机器人，刚刚拍摄了斯韦茨海底地基的第一张照片，结果出奇地平静。

Icefin wasn't just there to take soothing videos to calm our climate-change-caused anxiety. The research vehicle has an important job to help scientists monitor and better understand the condition of the glacier.

Icefin不仅仅是为了缓解气候变化引起的焦虑而拍摄舒缓视频。这个研究工具的重要任务，是帮助科学家监测和更好地了解冰川的状况。

The robotic vehicle investigated the 'grounding line' under the glacier – the changing line between where Thwaites rests on the ocean bed and where it floats over water. That grounding line is important for the stability of the glacier, because the farther the line retreats, the faster the ice flows into the sea, therefore adding to our rising sea levels.

机器人车调查了冰川下的“接地线”——这条变化的线介于思伟茨停留在海底和漂浮在水面之间。这条接地线对冰川的稳定性非常重要，因为这条线越往后退，冰流入海洋的速度就越快，随之会增加海平面上升的速度。

Visiting the grounding line is one of the reasons work like this is important because we can drive right up to it and actually measure where it is, said Britney Schmidt, a geophysicist who is part of International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.

“观察接地线是这项工作的重要原因之一，因为我们可以直接把机器人车开到那，并实际测量它的位置。”参与国际思伟茨冰川合作的地球物理学家Britney Schmidt说。

It's the first time anyone has done that or has ever even seen the grounding zone of a major glacier under the water, and that's the place where the greatest degree of melting and destabilisation can occur.

“这是第一次有人这么做，甚至是第一次看到水下主要冰川的搁浅地带，而那里是最容易发生融化和不稳定的地方。”

According to news reports, at the base of the ice on the grounding line, the team found that the water was 2 degrees Celsius above the normal freezing point.

根据新闻报道，在接地线的冰层底部，考察队发现水比正常冰点高出2摄氏度。