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The immense and forbidding Southern Ocean is famous for howling gales and devilish swells that have tested mariners for centuries. But its true strength lies beneath the waves.
辽阔而令人生畏的南大洋以咆哮的狂风和恶魔般的巨浪而闻名，几个世纪以来，这些都考验着水手们。但它真正的力量在于海浪之下。
The ocean's dominant feature, extending up to two miles deep and as much as 1,200 miles wide, is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, by far the largest current in the world.
南大洋的主要特征是南极绕极洋流，它深达2英里，宽达1200英里，是目前世界上最大的洋流。
It is the world's climate engine, and it has kept the world from warming even more by drawing deep water from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, much of which has been submerged for hundreds of years, and pulling it to the surface.
南极绕极洋流是世界的气候引擎，它通过从大西洋、太平洋和印度洋汲取深水(其中大部分已被淹没了数百年)，将其带到海面，从而阻止了世界进一步变暖。
There, it exchanges heat and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere before being dispatched again on its eternal round trip. Without this action, which scientists call upwelling, the world would be even hotter than it has become as a result of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
在海面，它与大气交换热量和二氧化碳，然后再次被送上其永恒的往返之旅。如果没有这一被科学家称为“上升流”的运动，由于人类排放二氧化碳和其他吸热气体，世界将比现在更热。
"From no perspective is there any place more important than the Southern Ocean," said Joellen L. Russell, an oceanographer at the University of Arizona. "There's nothing like it on Planet Earth."
“从这个角度来看，没有什么地方比南大洋更重要了，”亚利桑那大学的海洋学家乔伦·L·拉塞尔说。“这个地方在地球上是独一无二的。”
For centuries this ocean was largely unknown, its conditions so extreme that only a relative handful of sailors plied its iceberg-infested waters. What fragmentary scientific knowledge was available came from measurements taken by explorers, naval ships, the occasional research expeditions or whaling vessels.
几个世纪以来，这片海洋在很大程度上是未知的，它的气候条件太过极端，只有相对少数的水手在这片有冰山出没的水域中航行。那些残缺不全的科学知识来自于探险者、海军船只、偶尔的研究探险或捕鲸船只所进行的测量。
But more recently, a new generation of floating, autonomous probes that can collect temperature, density and other data for years—diving deep underwater, and even exploring beneath the Antarctic sea ice, before rising to the surface to phone home—has enabled scientists to learn much more.
但最近，新一代的漂浮自动探测器能够长年收集温度、密度和其他数据。这种自动探测器可以潜入水下，甚至在南极海冰下探索，然后浮出水面给（研究）基地报告信息，让科学家们得以了解更多。
They have discovered that global warming is affecting the Antarctic current in complex ways, and these shifts could complicate the ability to fight climate change in the future.
他们发现，全球变暖正在以复杂的方式影响南极洋流，而这些变化可能会使未来应对气候变化的能力变得更加复杂。
As the world warms, Dr. Russell and others say, the unceasing winds that drive the upwelling are getting stronger.
罗素博士和其他人表示，随着世界变暖，驱动上升流的无休无止的风正变得越来越强。
That could have the effect of releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, by bringing to the surface more of the deep water that has held this carbon locked away for centuries.
这可能会将更多已经封存碳长达几个世纪之久的深层水带到表层，在大气中释放出更多的二氧化碳。
