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The best way to get a regional scale picture of the extent of bleaching is to fly in a helicopter or a small plane.
要获得白化程度的地区性图像，最好的方法是乘坐直升机或小型飞机。
Or you can use a drone, but you probably need many hundreds of them to cover an area like the Great Barrier Reef.
或者也可以用无人机，但可能需要数百架无人机才能覆盖像大堡礁这样的区域。
I have conducted aerial surveys of the Great Barrier Reef three times in 2016, 17 and 2020.
我在2016年、2017年和2020年对大堡礁进行了三次空中调查。
It takes about eight days of flying in a small plane or helicopter to crisscross about a thousand reefs.
乘坐一架小型飞机或直升机大约需要8天的时间才能纵横交错地穿越1000个珊瑚礁。
And you can score the extent of bleaching on the reefs as you fly over them.
在珊瑚礁上空时，你可以测量它们的白化程度。
How does it feel to see evidence of bleaching from above?
从空中看到白化的证据感觉如何？
Oh, well, when we fly over a reef with no bleaching, we literally cheer.
嗯，如果我们看到一片珊瑚礁没有白化，真的会高兴得欢呼起来。
And it's very stressful to spend an entire day in a plane flying over, say, 200 reefs, all of which are severely bleached.
如果在飞机上飞一天，比如说观察了200个珊瑚礁，发现它们都严重白化，会感觉压力很大。
It's quite a confronting site, but it's the only way to get the big picture for something like the scale of the Great Barrier Reef.
那种画面不忍直视，但这是了解大堡礁这种规模的珊瑚礁的唯一途径。
And this year, the percent of the barrier reef which is severely bleached is at a record level.
今年，大堡礁被严重白化的比例达到了创纪录的水平。
We've never seen a bleaching vent as extensive, spatially.
我们从未见过如此广泛、大范围的白化缺口。
How much of the reef is bleached, exactly?
具体有多少珊瑚礁白化了？
This year, 75 percent of the Great Barrier Reef has bleaching.
今年，75%的大堡礁出现了白化现象。
The Great Barrier Reef is 2,300 kilometers long and it's up to 250 kilometers wide.
大堡礁长2300公里，宽达250公里。
It's 344,000 square kilometers in area, which is the size of Italy or Japan.
它的面积为344000平方公里，相当于意大利或日本的面积。
So it's a big piece of real estate.
面积相当之大。
And for 75 percent of it to be bleached in just one event, bearing in mind that this is the fifth event in eight years, is really very shocking.
考虑到这是八年来的第五次白化，仅在这一次事件中就有75%的珊瑚礁白化，这真的非常令人震惊。
How are things unfolding in other regions?
其他地区的情况如何？
Last summer, we saw unprecedented bleaching in the Florida Keys and throughout the Caribbean.
去年夏天，我们在佛罗里达群岛和整个加勒比海看到了前所未有的白化现象。
The eastern Pacific was also very bleached.
东太平洋也出现了严重的白化。
Fast forward six months and we've seen extensive bleaching throughout the Great Barrier Reef.
六个月后，我们又看到了大堡礁广泛的白化现象。
That's 10 percent of the world's coral reefs.
那里有世界上10%的珊瑚礁。
There are current bleach warnings from NOAA for most of the Indian Ocean and for parts of the Coral Triangle.
目前，美国国家海洋和大气局对印度洋大部分地区和珊瑚大三角的部分地区发出了白化警告。
That's the region north of Australia that includes Indonesia, the Philippines, and six other countries.
该地区位于澳大利亚以北，包括印度尼西亚、菲律宾和其他六个国家。
Is it true that bleaching doesn’t directly kill corals?
白化不会直接杀死珊瑚，这是真的吗？
How likely is it that all of these corals will survive the bleaching event?
所有珊瑚在白化事件中幸存下来的可能性有多大？
It's impossible that all of the corals that have bleached will all survive.
所有白化珊瑚都幸存下来是绝不可能的。
Bleaching is not necessarily fatal, as you said, but often it is.
白化不一定像你说的那样致命，但它往往是致命的。
And the likelihood of the corals dying depends on the severity of the bleaching and how long it lasts.
珊瑚死亡的可能性取决于白化的严重程度和持续时间。
It also depends on the severity of the heat stress.
还取决于热应激的严重程度。
And heat stress this year in both the northern and southern hemispheres is at record levels. It's off the charts.
今年，北半球和南半球的高温压力都达到了创纪录的水平。远超预期。
So already in Australia, I've seen reports of up to 80% loss of bleached corals on some of the badly affected portions of the Great Barrier Reef.
在澳大利亚，我已经看到了相关报道，称大堡礁一部分受影响严重的白化珊瑚损失率高达80%。
A mass bleaching event is by definition a mass mortality event.
根据定义，大规模白化事件就是大规模死亡事件。
The reality is we are losing literally billions of corals on the world's coral reefs.
现实是，全世界的珊瑚礁正在失去数十亿的珊瑚。
What do you find most concerning about the trends you’re seeing?
对于你所看到的趋势，你觉得最令人担忧的是什么？
So the concerning thing about these bleaching events, whether they're global or regional in scale, is that the gap between one bleaching event and the next is getting shorter and shorter.
关于这些白化事件，无论是全球性的还是地区性的，令人担忧的是，一个白化事件和下一个白化事件之间的间隔越来越短。
And those gaps are critically important.
这些时间间隔至关重要。
They're the window of opportunity for the fast-growing corals that are better at recovery to regain a foothold.
它们是快速生长的珊瑚重新恢复元气的机会窗口，珊瑚很擅长恢复。
Ecologically, recovery means the replacement of dead corals by new live ones, ideally of the same species and eventually of the same size.
从生态学上讲，恢复意味着用新的活珊瑚取代死亡的珊瑚，最好是同种类，并最终达到同样的大小。
And we're just not seeing that ecological recovery to the extent that we used to see when the gaps between these bleaching events was much longer.
如今的生态恢复并没有达到以往的程度，那时珊瑚白化事件之间的间隔要更久一些。
