Sea Level Rise Could Inundate the Internet

海平面上升将导致互联网崩溃

Extreme sea level rise could swamp internet cabling and hubs by 2033—and coastal cities like New York, Seattle and Miami are at greatest risk.

极端的海平面上升将导致互联网电缆和集线器在2033年被淹没，并且纽约、西雅图和迈阿密等沿海城市将面临最大风险。

撰文播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：陈美娟

审校：郭晓

The big hurricanes last summer—Harvey, Irma and Maria—knocked out internet service for many residents. But another threat to the internet is just regular old sea level rise. 

去年夏天的大飓风哈维、厄玛和玛丽亚使许多居民的互联网服务瘫痪了。但是对互联网的另一个威胁就是老生常谈的海平面上升。

"Uh, yeah, some is already happening." Carol Barford, a biogeochemist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. "I mean there's a lot of data out there that shows that sea level on the coast is rising."

“嗯，是的，有些已经发生了。”威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校生物地球化学家卡罗尔·巴福德说。“我的意思是，有大量的数据表明海岸的海平面正在上升。”

And that, she says, means big problems for internet connectivity in major coastal cities like New York, Miami and Seattle. Barford and her colleagues forecast that danger using a map of global internet networks, and sea level rise data from NOAA. 

她说，这意味着纽约、迈阿密和西雅图等主要沿海城市的互联网连接存在着巨大的风险。巴福德和她的同事们利用全球互联网网络图谱和NOAA（美国国家海洋和大气局）的海平面上升数据预测了这类危险。

"So there are two maps, where's the internet stuff and where's the flooding. And when they're superimposed, where they coincide, there are problems."

 “因此我们有两套图谱，一套是互联网网络的地图，另一套是洪水的地图。当它们叠加在一起时，重合的部分就是风险所在”。

Using NOAA's extreme sea level rise estimate, recommended for forecasts involving long-term infrastructure like this, the researchers say that 15 years from now, 4,100 miles of fiber-optic cable could be underwater. And 1,100 internet hubs could be surrounded by water. And remember, our land-based infrastructure isn't waterproof, like transoceanic cables are.

NOAA的极端海平面上升估计适用于这类长期基础设施的预测，利用这种估计，研究人员说，15年后，4100英里的光纤电缆可能被淹没于水下。1100个互联网集线器将被水包围。请记住，我们的陆基基础设施像跨洋电缆一样，也不是防水的。

"Seawater comes in, and cabling is not meant to work underwater. So signals will be interrupted and dropped. The actual infrastructure itself might deteriorate." The researchers presented the peer reviewed findings at the Applied Networking Research Workshop in Montreal this week. [Ramakrishnan Durairajan, Carol Barford, and Paul Barford, Lights Out: Climate Change Risk to Internet Infrastructure]

“海水涌上来，而电缆无法在水下工作。所以信号会被中断和减弱。基础设施的自身情况会恶化。”研究人员本周在蒙特利尔的应用网络研究研讨会上介绍了经同行评议的结果。

They also write that large internet service providers including AT&T, CenturyLink and Inteliquent face the greatest risk. If these predictions play out, internet companies need to harden their networks soon, they say. Or we could lose service during the emergency—right when we need it most.

他们还写道，大型互联网服务提供商，包括AT&T（美国电话电报公司），CenturyLink 和 Inteliquent面临最大的风险。他们说，如果这些预测奏效，互联网公司需要尽快加强其服务。不然一旦遇到紧急情况，我们可能无法在最需要的时候使用网络服务。