A few weeks ago, scientists at Ukraine's Vernadsky Research Base in Antarctica awoke to find their usually pristine white surrounds drenched in a shocking blood-red.
幾周前，位于南極的烏克蘭沃納德斯基研究站的科學(xué)家醒來發(fā)現(xiàn)周圍原本白茫茫的雪地被染成了血紅色，令人震驚。

From the gory-looking images, you could be forgiven for wondering if there'd been some sort of horror-movie-style penguin massacre. The good news is that the real cause is far less dramatic; unfortunately, it still has dire implications.
看著這些“血淋淋”的照片，難怪你會好奇這里是不是出現(xiàn)了恐怖電影里的企鵝大屠殺。好消息是真實的原因并沒有那么可怕；壞消息是這種情況會有可怕的影響。

Marine ecologist Andrey Zotov from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, captured these images while conducting research at the Antarctic station. For such an epic mess, the culprits behind this dramatic redecoration are incredibly tiny.
烏克蘭國家科學(xué)院的海洋生態(tài)學(xué)家Andrey Zotov在南極站進行研究時拍下了這些照片。這場景史無前例，但這種戲劇性變化背后的罪魁禍首卻極其微小。

"Our scientists have identified them under a microscope as Chlamydomonas nivalis," said the National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine in a Facebook post.
烏克蘭國家南極科學(xué)中心在Facebook上發(fā)的一篇文章中說：“我們的科學(xué)家通過在顯微鏡下觀察，已經(jīng)確定了它們是雪地衣藻?！?/div>

These microscopic green algae (we'll get to why they look red in a moment), a type of single-cellular seaweed, are common in all icy and snowy regions of Earth, from the arctic to alpine regions.
這些微生綠藻（我們一會就知道它們?yōu)槭裁词羌t色的了）是一種單細胞海藻，在地球上被冰雪覆蓋的地區(qū)很常見，從北極到高山地區(qū)都有。

They lie slumbering during the brutal winter, but once the sunlight warms enough to soften their crystallised world, the algae spring awake, making use of the meltwater and sunlight to rapidly bloom.
寒冬時期它們會冬眠，一旦陽光變暖，冰雪融化，藻類就蘇醒了，利用融水和陽光迅速開花。

"The algae need liquid water in order to bloom," University of Leeds microbiologist Steffi Lutz told Gizmodo in 2016.
利茲大學(xué)微生物學(xué)家Steffi Lutz在2016年告訴Gizmodo（美國一個知名科技博客）：“這種藻類需要液態(tài)水來開花。”

"[The algal blooms] contribute to climate change," the centre stated.
該中心表示：“‘藻花’會加速氣候變化。”

A study in 2016 showed that snow algal blooms can decrease the amount of light reflected from the snow (also know as albedo) by up to 13 percent across one melt season in the Arctic.
2016年的一項研究表明，雪藻花會減少雪對光的反射（也叫反照率），北極一個融冰季節(jié)會減少13%。

"This will invariably result in higher melt rates," the researchers wrote.
研究人員寫道：“這必然會導(dǎo)致融化加速。”

In 2017 environmental scientists calculated that microbial communities, which include C. nivalis, contributed to over a sixth of the snowmelt where they were present in Alaskan icefields. Their experiments showed that areas with more meltwater led to the growth of 50 percent more algae and places with more algae melted further.
環(huán)境科學(xué)家在2017年計算過，在雪地衣藻出現(xiàn)的阿拉斯加冰原上超過六分之一的融雪都是由包括雪地衣藻在內(nèi)的微生物群落造成的。他們的實驗表明融水更多的地區(qū)藻類會增加50%，而藻類更多的地區(qū)還會進一步融化。

This Antarctic summer has certainly seen a lot more meltwater than usual. Temperature records keep tumbling, leading to rapid melting at a scale previously only seen in the Northern Hemisphere.
今年夏天，南極的融水比往年要多得多，溫度紀錄不斷刷新，如此大規(guī)模快速融化以前只在北半球出現(xiàn)過。

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翻譯：菲菲