人類只“看清”了0.001%的海底

You've probably heard this before： We understand more about outer space than we do about the deepest depths of Earth's oceans. But knowing this and actually thinking about the numbers are another thing entirely. Roughly 70 percentofthe planetiscovered in ocean，and there'sfarmore life in it than the cumulative organisms on land. Scientists estimate there are somewhere between 700，0o0—1 million species living in the approximately 360 million square kilometers of water.After centuries of exploration， we've only catalogued about a third ofthose creatures.

你可能聽(tīng)過(guò)這樣一句話：我們對(duì)外太空的了解比對(duì)地球海洋深處的了解還要多。但知道這個(gè)事實(shí)和真正理解這些數(shù)字完全是兩碼事。地球約有 70% 的面積被海洋覆蓋，海洋中的生物遠(yuǎn)比陸地上所有的生物加起來(lái)還要多?？茖W(xué)家估計(jì)，在大約3.6億平方千米的海域中，生活著70萬(wàn)到100萬(wàn)個(gè)物種。經(jīng)過(guò)幾個(gè)世紀(jì)的探索，我們只對(duì)其中大約三分之一的生物進(jìn)行了編目。

That's not including microorganisms， by the way. If you want to add those to your tally， you'll need to tack on a few more million to the total number of species. Even less is known about the seafloor itself. According to International Hydrographic Organization （lHO）， just about 25% percent of Earth's ocean floors have been mapped using high-resolution technology.

順便說(shuō)一下，這還不包括微生物。如果加上微生物的數(shù)量，海洋生物物種還得再增加幾百萬(wàn)。我們對(duì)海底的了解甚至更少。據(jù)國(guó)際海道測(cè)量組織的說(shuō)法，地球海洋的海底只有約 25% 的面積使用高分辨率技術(shù)進(jìn)行了測(cè)繪。

But when it comes to seeing what's down there-be it remotely or in piloted submersibles—the total is downright negligible. Ocean Discovery League is a non-profit organization. Itsresearchers charted outabout 44，0oo records from submersible expeditions undertaken by 14 countries across both 120 Exclusive Economic Zones （EEZs） and international waters. It's from those statisticsthattheywereableto calculate that humans still have 99.999 percent of the seafloor left to visuallyobserve.

但當(dāng)談及對(duì)海底的觀測(cè)一—無(wú)論是遠(yuǎn)程探測(cè)還是載人深潛一其觀測(cè)范圍簡(jiǎn)直微不足道。海洋探索聯(lián)盟是一家非營(yíng)利組織，其研究人員整合了來(lái)自14個(gè)國(guó)家在120個(gè)專屬經(jīng)濟(jì)區(qū)及公海開(kāi)展的潛水器勘探數(shù)據(jù)（約4.4萬(wàn)項(xiàng)觀測(cè)記錄）?；谶@些數(shù)據(jù)，他們計(jì)算出還有 99.999% 的海底區(qū)域未被人類實(shí)地觀測(cè)到。

WordBank

catalogue/'kat?lpg/ v. 列入目錄；編入目錄 tackon附加，添加 The poems were tacked on at the end of the book. expedition/，eksp?'difn/n.探險(xiǎn)；考察 calculate/'kelkjulert/ v. 計(jì)算；核算 fundamental/，fnda'mentl/adj.十分重大的；根本的

Whathas been documented also illustrates a troublesome bias in geographic location.Most expeditions have taken place inside EEZs within 200 nautical miles of the US， Japan， and New Zealand. Combine those countries with France and Germany， and together they account for about 97 percent of all dives.

現(xiàn)有勘探記錄還突顯出令人擔(dān)憂的地理位置偏倚問(wèn)題。絕大多數(shù)海底勘探集中于美國(guó)、日本及新西蘭200海里內(nèi)的專屬經(jīng)濟(jì)區(qū)。若計(jì)入法國(guó)和德國(guó)，五國(guó)深潛航次占全球總量的約 97% 0

“This small and biased sample is problematic when attempting to characterize，understand，andmanagea global ocean，\"researchers wrote. Accordingto theteam，theseestimates starkly lay out the need for a \"fundamental change in how we explore and study the global deep ocean\".

研究人員警示稱：“這一規(guī)模小且偏頗的數(shù)據(jù)樣本，在試圖表征、理解及管理全球海洋時(shí)是存在問(wèn)題的。”研究團(tuán)隊(duì)指出，這些數(shù)據(jù)充分揭示出“我們探索研究全球深海的方式亟須根本性變革”。