這個氣候變化的惡果會讓你夜不能寐
人類排放溫室氣體導致的全球變暖，正在對現(xiàn)實世界產生明顯的影響：熱浪更多、暴雨更大、海平面更高，而這些只是眾多變化中的少數(shù)幾例。
In recent years, though, social scientists have been wrestling with a murkier question: What will climate change mean for human welfare?
但近年來，社會科學家一直在努力解答一個更復雜的問題：氣候變化對人類的健康意味著什么?
Forecasts in this realm are tricky, necessarily based on a long chain of assumptions. Scientific papers have predicted effects as varied as a greater spread of tropical diseases, fewer deaths from cold weather and more from hot weather, and even bumpier rides on airplanes.
這個領域的預測很難，必須建立在一長串假設的基礎上?？茖W論文預言的相關影響多種多樣，包括熱帶病更廣泛的傳播、寒冷天氣導致的死亡減少、炎熱天氣導致的死亡增加，乃至飛行旅途變得更加顛簸。
Now comes another entry in this literature: a prediction that in a hotter world, people will get less sleep.
現(xiàn)在，這類文獻中又多了一條：預測氣候變暖后，人類的睡眠會減少。
In a paper published online Friday by the journal Science Advances, Nick Obradovich and colleagues predicted more restless nights, especially in the summer, as global temperatures rise. They found that the poor, who are less likely to have air-conditioning or be able to run it, as well as the elderly, who have more difficulty regulating their body temperature, would be hit hard.
在期刊《科學前沿》(Science Advances)周五發(fā)表在網上的一篇論文中，尼克·奧布拉多維奇(Nick Obradovich)和同事預測，隨著全球氣溫升高，煩躁不安的夜晚會增加，尤其是夏季。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，擁有或有錢使用空調的可能性較小的窮人，以及更難調節(jié)自身體溫的老人，也許會受到嚴重影響。
If global emissions are allowed to continue at a high level, the paper found, then additional nights of sleeplessness can be expected beyond what people normally experience. By 2050, for every 100 Americans, an extra six nights of sleeplessness can be expected every month, the researchers calculated. By 2099, that would more than double, to 14 additional nights of tossing and turning each month for every 100 people, in their estimation.
這篇論文發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果允許全球排放繼續(xù)保持在高位，預計不眠之夜的增加會超出人們正常的經歷。根據研究人員的計算，到2050年，每100名美國人一個月預計會增加六個不眠之夜。據他們估計，到2099年，這個數(shù)字會翻倍還不止，每100人一個月輾轉難眠的夜晚會增加到14個。
Researchers have long known that being too hot or too cold at night can disturb anyone’s sleep, but nobody had thought to ask how that might affect people in a world grown hotter because of climate change.
研究人員早就知道晚上太熱或太冷都可能影響一個人的睡眠，但沒人想到要去問，氣候變化帶來的全球變暖可能會給人類在這方面帶來什么影響。
Dr. Obradovich is a political scientist who researches both the politics of climate change and its likely human impacts, holding appointments at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He started the research while completing a doctoral degree at the University of California, San Diego.
奧布拉多維奇博士是一名政治學者，研究的領域是氣候變化政治及其可能會對人類造成的影響?，F(xiàn)供職于哈佛和麻省理工(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的他，是在加州大學圣迭戈分校(University of California, San Diego)攻讀博士學位期間開始相關研究的。
He got the idea for the study while enduring a 2015 heat wave in an apartment in San Diego with no air-conditioner in the bedroom.
2015年，在圣迭戈一套臥室沒有安裝空調的公寓里，奧布拉多維奇在熱浪的煎熬中想到了這個研究思路。
”I wasn’t sleeping,” he recalled. “My friends weren’t sleeping. My colleagues weren’t sleeping. The levels of grumpiness were higher than normal.”
“我睡不著，”他回憶說。“我的朋友睡不著，同事也睡不著。脾氣暴躁的程度高出了正常水平。”
To calculate the effect of warmer temperatures in the future, he turned to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which asks people in a survey to recall their sleep patterns in the previous month. Sure enough, he found a correlation between higher temperatures in particular cities and disturbed sleep as reported by their residents. To make forecasts, he drew on computer estimates of how hot particular places will get if greenhouse emissions continue at a high level.
為了計算未來氣溫升高的影響，他求助于美國疾病控制與預防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)收集的數(shù)據。該中心在一項調查中讓人們回憶前一個月的睡眠情況。果然，他在某些城市發(fā)現(xiàn)了氣溫升高和民眾反映的睡眠受到干擾之間的關聯(lián)。為了進行預測，他利用了計算機來演算溫室氣體排放繼續(xù)保持在高位的情況下，某些地方會變得多熱。
Dr. Obradovich acknowledged that a survey about sleep over the previous month was subject to the vagaries of memory. More definitive research would involve putting lots of people in a sleep laboratory and manipulating the temperature to see what happened. “Those ideal data don’t exist and would be prohibitively expensive to collect,” he said.
奧布拉多維奇承認，對前一個月的睡眠情況進行的調查會受記憶力變化的影響。更權威的研究需要把很多人放在一個睡眠實驗室里并控制溫度，以便觀察發(fā)生的情況。“這些理想數(shù)據根本不存在，它們的收集費用高得嚇人，”他說。
A bigger weakness in the study, perhaps, is that it is impossible to know what human society will look like 100 years from now. How many people will be without air-conditioning in that world?
這項研究更大的缺陷或許在于，我們不可能知道100年后的人類社會是什么樣子。在那個世界里，沒有空調的人會有多少?
Jerome M. Siegel, head of a sleep laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study, said the assumptions and data limitations gave him pause.
沒有參加這項研究的加州大學洛杉磯分校(University of California, Los Angeles)睡眠實驗室主任杰羅姆·M·西格爾(Jerome M. Siegel)說，相關假設和數(shù)據上的局限性讓他陷入了思考。
“It’s sort of a nice exercise — yes, this is something that might affect people,” Dr. Siegel said. “But this would be way down on my list of things to worry about with climate change, even though I’m a sleep researcher.”
“在一定程度上是一種很好的練習，確實，這可能會影響人類，”西格爾說。“但在我因為氣候變化而擔心的事情目錄上，它可能排在后面，盡管我自己是研究睡眠的。”
