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| FATEHGARH-SAHIB, India — When the unseasonably heavy rains flooded the fields, and then the equally unseasonable heat shriveled the seeds, it didn’t just slash Ranjit Singh’s wheat harvest by nearly half. |
| 印度法泰赫加尔-萨希布——反常的大雨淹没了农田，接着，同样反常的高温使种子枯萎，对兰吉特·辛格来说，损失的并不只是将近一半的小麦歉收。 |
| It put him, and nearly all the other households in his village in northern India, that much further from financial stability in a country where a majority of people scratch out a living on farms. Like many Indian farmers, Mr. Singh is saddled with enormous debt and wondering how he will repay it, as a warming world makes farming ever more precarious. |
| 在这个大多数人依靠农业勉强过活的国家里，这让他——以及这个印度北部村庄的几乎所有家庭——更加难以实现财务稳定。像许多印度农民一样，辛格背负着巨额债务，不知将如何偿还，而全球变暖使农业变得更加不稳定。 |
| For India and other South Asian nations, home to hundreds of millions of humanity’s most vulnerable, a seemingly bottomless well of challenges — poverty, food security, health, governance — has only deepened as the region bakes on the front lines of climate change. |
| 包括印度在内的几个南亚国家生活着全世界最为困苦的几亿人民，贫穷、粮食安全、健康、治理等挑战深不见底，这些问题随着该地区受到气候变化的直接影响而愈演愈烈。 |
| Global warming is no longer a distant prospect that officials with short electoral mandates can choose to look away from. The increasing volatility in weather patterns means a greater risk of disasters and severe economic damage for countries already straining to increase growth and development, and to move past the pandemic’s devastation to lives and livelihoods. |
| 全球变暖不再是一个遥远的前景，官员无法再因为在任时间有限而无视它。日增的天气波动性意味着国家面临更大的灾害风险和严重的经济损失，而这些国家在促进增长和发展、摆脱大流行对生命和生计的破坏方面，本身就已经面临困难。 |
| In Pakistan, which is grappling with an economic crisis and a political meltdown, a cholera outbreak in the southwest sent the local government scrambling, just as it was trying to quell massive forest fires. |
| 巴基斯坦正在努力应对经济危机和政治崩溃，该国西南部正在暴发霍乱，使还在努力扑灭大规模山火的地方政府手忙脚乱。 |
| In Bangladesh, floods that came before the monsoons stranded millions of people, complicating longstanding efforts to improve the country’s response to chronic flooding. In Nepal, officials are trying to drain about-to-burst glacial lakes before they wash away Himalayan villages facing a new phenomenon: too much rain, too little drinking water. |
| 在孟加拉国，雨季之前发生的洪水使数百万人陷入困境，给该国治理水患痼疾的长期努力增加了困难。在尼泊尔，官员们正试图排干冰川湖，因为一旦破裂，湖水会冲毁喜马拉雅地区的村庄，这些村庄面临一个新的现象：雨水过多，饮用水过少。 |
| And in India, which is the region’s biggest grain supplier and provides hundreds of millions of its own citizens with food rations, the reduced wheat harvest has resurfaced longstanding concerns about food security and curbed the government’s ambitions to feed the world. |
| 印度是该地区最大的粮食供应国，为本国数亿国民提供粮食配给，小麦减产再次引发了人们长期以来对粮食安全的担忧，并抑制了该国政府为世界供粮的雄心。 |
| South Asia has always been hot, the monsoons always drenching. And it is far from alone in contending with new weather patterns. But this region, with nearly a quarter of the world’s population, is experiencing such climatic extremes, from untimely heavy rain and floods to scorching temperatures and extended heat waves, that they are increasingly becoming the norm, not the exception. |
| 南亚一直很热，雨季总是非常潮湿。它绝不是唯一一个在应对新的气候规律的地区。但这个人口占到世界近四分之一的地区正在经历极端气候，从不合时宜的大雨和洪水到灼热的气温和持续的热浪，这些极端气候正日益成为常态，而非异常。 |
| “We used to wear jackets in March,” said Mr. Singh, the farmer in Punjab, in India’s north. “This year, from the first of March, we were using fans.” |
| “我们过去在3月穿外套，”农民辛格说，他所在的旁遮普邦位于印度北部。“今年，3月1日就开始用风扇了。” |
| That March was the hottest month in India and Pakistan in 122 years of record-keeping, while rainfall was 60 to 70 percent below the norm, scientists say. The heat came earlier than usual this year, and temperatures stayed up — as high as 49 degrees Celsius, roughly 120 degrees Fahrenheit, in New Delhi in May. |
| 科学家表示，这个3月是印度和巴基斯坦开始记录气候的122年来最热的月份，而降雨量比正常水平低60%到70%。今年的高温比往年来得更早，而且气温一直在上升——5月在新德里高达49摄氏度，大约120华氏度。 |
| Such a heat wave is 30 times as likely now as before the industrial age, estimates Krishna AchutaRao, a climate researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology. He said that if the globe warms to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, from the current 1.2 degrees, such extreme patterns will come much more often — perhaps once every 50 years, or even every five. |
| 印度理工学院的气候研究员克里希纳·阿丘塔拉奥估计，现在出现这种热浪的可能性是工业时代之前的30倍。他说，与工业化之前的温度相比，如果全球的升温幅度从目前的1.2摄氏度增加到2摄氏度，这种极端模式将会更频繁地出现——可能每50年甚至每5年一次。 |
| With the extreme weather, the yield of India’s national wheat harvest was down at least 3.5 percent this year, based on initial information. In Punjab, traditionally India’s wheat basket, the drop was about 15 percent, with some districts seeing as much as a 30 percent decline. |
| 根据初步信息，由于极端天气，印度今年全国的小麦产量至少下降了3.5%。在印度传统的小麦产区旁遮普邦，降幅在15%左右，一些地区甚至高达30%。 |
| In the Fatehgarh-Sahib area of Punjab, among the worst-hit, farmers like Mr. Singh faced a double calamity. Heavy rains came earlier and lasted longer than usual, inundating the fields. Those who managed to drain the water hoped the worst was over. But in March came the heat wave. |
| 在受灾最严重的旁遮普邦法塔赫格尔-萨希卜地区，像辛格这样的农民面临着双重灾难。暴雨比往年来得更早，持续时间也更长，淹没了农田。奋力排水的人们本以为最糟糕的情况已经过去。但3月的时候，热浪来袭。 |
| As its intensity became clear, the Indian government suddenly reversed a decision to expand wheat exports, with global supplies already reduced by the war in Ukraine. Officials cited rising international prices and the challenges of food security at home. |
| 在明确了高温天气的严重程度后，印度政府突然撤销了扩大小麦出口的决定，而全球供应已经因乌克兰战争而减少。官员们援引的理由包括国际价格上涨和国内粮食安全面临的挑战。 |
| Malancha Chakrabarty, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi who studies climate change and development, said India was “extremely vulnerable” to food security threats not just because of drops in production, but also because much of the population could struggle to afford food as prices rise. |
| 新德里观察研究基金会研究气候变化与发展的研究员马隆贾·查克拉巴蒂表示，印度“极其容易”受到粮食安全威胁的影响，这不仅是因为产量下降，还因为随着粮价上涨，很多人可能负担不起食品价格。 |
| “We are looking at a huge population which is on the borders of being extremely poor,” Dr. Chakrabarty said. Despite significant progress in reducing extreme poverty, she said, many people are merely surviving and “wouldn’t be able to take a shock.” |
| “我们看到的是一个处于极度贫困边缘的庞大人口，”查克拉巴蒂说。她还表示，尽管在减少极端贫困方面取得了重大进展，但许多人只是勉强活了下来，“无法承受冲击”。 |
| The damage to the wheat crop has sent yet another tremor through India’s underperforming agriculture sector. In many places, traditional crops are particularly vulnerable to the depletion of groundwater and erratic monsoons. Farmers and the government do not agree on how far to go in opening agriculture markets. Deep in debt, farmers are committing suicide in growing numbers. |
| 小麦的减产令印度表现不佳的农业部门再次受到震动。在许多地方，传统作物特别容易受地下水枯竭和不稳定季风的影响。农民和政府在以多大程度开放农业市场的问题上意见不一。由于负债累累，自杀的农民越来越多。 |
| The agrarian crisis has pushed many to the cities in search of other work. But India’s economic growth, focused largely at the top, is not expanding employment opportunities. And much of the urban work is outdoor labor, which this year’s extreme heat has made dangerous. |
| 农业危机将许多人推向城市，寻找其他工作。但印度的经济增长主要集中在经济结构的顶层，就业机会并没有随着经济的增长而增加。而且大部分城市工作都是户外劳动，今年的极端高温使其变得危险。 |
| While the drop in the wheat harvest has affected India most directly, the shocks from climate change do not stop at international borders. |
| 尽管小麦的减产对印度的影响最为直接，但气候变化带来的冲击超越了国界。 |
| Bangladesh and Nepal are reliant on India for wheat imports. Rising tides wreak as much havoc in Bangladesh as in the neighboring Indian regions of Assam and West Bengal. When the water from heavy rains thunders down from the Himalayas, Nepali officials have to try to bring back the endangered rhinoceroses that are swept into India. |
| 孟加拉国和尼泊尔的小麦进口都依赖印度。涨潮对孟加拉国和邻近的印度阿萨姆邦和西孟加拉邦地区造成了同样严重的破坏。当暴雨引发的洪水从喜马拉雅山脉咆哮而下时，尼泊尔官员不得不设法将冲到印度的濒危犀牛带回来。 |
| The problem with floods in Bangladesh is not new. With hundreds of rivers cutting through the nation of 170 million, rising waters displace hundreds of thousands every year. |
| 孟加拉国的洪水问题并不是新鲜事。数百条河流穿过这个1.7亿人口的国家，上涨的水位每年导致数十万人流离失所。 |
| The authorities have become better at saving lives through swift evacuations. But they are struggling to predict the timing of floods because of erratic monsoon patterns. |
| 当局已经能够通过迅速疏散来拯救更多生命。但由于季风无常，他们仍难以预测洪水发生的具体时间。 |
| Nepal, where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, is perhaps the clearest example of how extremes of weather — floods and water shortages on one hand, increasing forest fires on the other — are disrupting life. |
| 尼泊尔有四分之一人口生活在贫困线以下，它或许就是极端气候破坏生活的最明显例证，它一面遭受洪水侵害和水资源短缺，另一面则面临不断增多的森林火灾。 |
| Villagers in the Himalayas accustomed to snow are now experiencing heavier rainfall, a phenomenon that is forcing many to migrate. Drinking water is also a major problem, as springs dry up with the reduction in snow melt. |
| 喜马拉雅地区那些习惯了寒冷气候的村民如今正在经历更强的降雨，这一现象迫使许多人移居别处。饮用水也成为一大难题，因为泉水会随着融雪减少而干涸。 |
| Nepal’s agriculture ministry estimated that about 30 percent of arable land, mainly in hilly areas, was no longer being used. Across the country, forest fires have increased by almost tenfold over the past two decades. |
| 据尼泊尔农业部估计，国内30%左右的耕地已荒废，主要都在山区。在过去二十年里，全国发生的森林火灾增加了近十倍。 |
| Downstream, agriculture is increasingly uncertain and risky: Last year, paddy production was down nearly 10 percent, with tens of thousands of acres damaged by floods that killed scores of people. |
| 下游农业面临的不确定性和风险越来越大：去年，水稻产量下降了近10%，上万公顷的土地被洪水破坏，夺走许多生命。 |
| The constant melting of snow due to rising temperatures has increased the number of glacial lakes by the hundreds, with about 20 identified as prone to bursting. |
| 由于气温上升，积雪不断融化，导致冰川湖数以百计地增加，其中有20处被认为容易发生溃决。 |
| In 2016, the Nepal Army drained Imja Lake near Mount Everest to lower the risk to downstream populations. The authorities are trying to raise money for the immediate draining of four more lakes. |
| 2016年，尼泊尔军方排干了珠穆朗玛峰附近的伊姆哈湖，以降低下游人口面临的威胁。当局正在努力筹集资金，用于紧急排干另外四处湖泊。 |
| In Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan region, the evidence of an unusual spring was clear for weeks: The sky across several districts turned bright orange as a severe sandstorm blanketed the region. Forest fires on the province’s border burned for weeks, destroying an estimated two million pine and olive trees. |
| 在巴基斯坦动荡不安的俾路支地区，这个春季明显不同寻常的迹象已经持续数周：一场严重的沙尘暴覆盖了整个地区，好几个片区的天空都变成了亮橙色。在该省边境地区，森林大火持续数周，烧毁了约200万棵松树和橄榄树。 |
| On top of the fires came pestilence. Panic gripped the mountain town of Pir Koh after a large number of people — most of them children — experienced diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps. By the end of April, officials declared a cholera outbreak, which health officials said could be linked to rising temperatures. More than two dozen people died. |
| 大火之外还暴发了瘟疫。在大量民众——其中大多数是儿童——出现腹泻、呕吐和腿部抽筋的状况后，山城皮尔科陷入了恐慌。到4月底，官方宣布暴发了霍乱，卫生官员称这可能与气温上升有关。已有二十多人死亡。 |
| While disease outbreaks, flooding and harvest disasters capture headlines, activists and experts warn about the toll of more constant, routine threats. |
| 虽然新闻都在关注疾病暴发、洪水和歉收之灾，但活动人士和专家警告，更持久的、常态性的威胁所造成的损害也不容忽视。 |
| “This is everyday climate change at work: a slow-onset shift in environmental conditions that is destroying lives and livelihoods before our eyes,” said a report outlining how tens of thousands of Bangladeshis lose their homes and crops to river erosion every year. |
| 一份报告概述了大量孟加拉国人每年如何因河流侵蚀而失去家园和作物。它写道：“这就是气候变化日复一日的影响：自然环境发生的缓慢转变正在摧毁生命和生计，而这一切就在我们眼前上演。” |
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