Will We Ever Be Able To Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather?
I n the summer of 1991, Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, self-destructed.
1991年夏天，菲律宾皮纳图博火山发生自毁。
The eruption started on June 12, and three days later it culminated in a tremendous explosion.
火山喷发于6月12日开始，三天后以巨大的爆炸达到顶峰。
By the time pyroclastic flows — incandescent avalanches of molten rock and gas — tumbled down its sterilized slopes, Pinatubo’s peak had been obliterated and replaced by a 2.5-kilometer-wide chasm.
当火山碎屑流——熔岩和气体的炽热雪崩——从其无菌的斜坡上滚落时，皮纳图博峰的山峰已经被抹去，取而代之的是一条 2.5 公里宽的峡谷。
The eruption killed more than 800 people, mainly because roofs, weighed down by rain-saturated ash, collapsed.
这次火山喷发造成 800 多人死亡，主要是因为屋顶被雨水浸湿的火山灰压垮了。
But it could have been so much worse : About 250,000 people, across multiple cities and a sprawling U.S. Air Force base, lived in the volcano’s shadow.
但情况可能会更糟：来自多个城市和一个庞大的美国空军基地的约 25 万人生活在火山的阴影下。
When Pinatubo started convulsing and belching steam in April of that year, scientists from the United States and the Philippines deployed an array of instruments that tracked the volcano’s inner tumult.
同年 4 月，当皮纳图博火山开始抽搐并喷出蒸汽时，来自美国和菲律宾的科学家部署了一系列仪器来追踪火山内部的骚动。
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives.
火山预报可以挽救无数生命。
But most of the time warnings are more like educated guesses.
但大多数时候，警告更像是有根据的猜测。
“We didn’t know much about that volcano, and so there was this really rapid geological assessment.
“我们对这座火山了解不多，因此进行了非常快速的地质评估。
And the assessment said, ‘Oh, crap, when this thing erupts, it only erupts big,’” said Mike Poland , current scientist in charge at the U.S. Geological Service’s Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
评估结果说，‘哦，糟糕，当这个东西喷发时，它只会喷发得更大，’”现任美国地质局黄石火山观测站负责人的科学家迈克·波兰 (Mike Polish) 说。
“And that became the basis for a forecast.”
“这成为了预测的基础。”
By early June, ash and lava were escaping Pinatubo’s flanks, and an evacuation was ordered, just a few days before the cataclysmic hammer fell.
六月初，火山灰和熔岩从皮纳图博的侧翼逸出，就在灾难之锤落下的前几天，人们下令进行疏散。
It was, in other words, a very close call.
换句话说，这是一次千钧一发的机会。
Those scientists saved countless lives, but their forecast was more of an educated guess than it might have appeared.
这些科学家拯救了无数的生命，但他们的预测更多的是一种有根据的猜测，而不是表面上看起来的那样。
It was nothing like a weather forecast; they couldn’t say that on June 12, an explosive eruption was going to occur with anything resembling certainty, nor could they predict the evolution of that eruption.
这一点也不像天气预报。他们无法确定 6 月 12 日将会发生爆炸性喷发，也无法预测喷发的演变。
I n philosophy, “qualia” refers to the subjective qualities of our experience: what it’s like for Alice to see blue or for Bob to feel delighted.
在哲学中，“感受性”指的是我们体验的主观品质：爱丽丝看到蓝色或鲍勃感到高兴是什么感觉。
Qualia are “the ways things seem to us,” as the late philosopher Daniel Dennett put it.
正如已故哲学家丹尼尔·丹尼特所说，感受性是“事物在我们看来的方式”。
In these essays, our columnists follow their curiosity, and explore important but not necessarily answerable scientific questions.
在这些文章中，我们的专栏作家追随他们的好奇心，探索重要但不一定可以回答的科学问题。
With very few exceptions, this imprecision is true of all well-monitored volcanoes.
除了极少数例外，这种不精确性对于所有受到良好监控的火山来说都是如此。
But volcanology, as a field, has made great leaps since Pinatubo blew its top.
但自从皮纳图博火山爆发以来，火山学作为一个领域已经取得了巨大的飞跃。
The instrumentation is more advanced, machine learning has made interpreting data far more efficient, and scientists have a much better understanding of the magmatic plumbing that drives volcanism.
仪器更加先进，机器学习使数据解释更加高效，科学家对驱动火山活动的岩浆管道有了更好的了解。
That’s prompted me — as a professionally trained volcanologist who now writes a lot about the field — to wonder: How close are we to forecasting volcano behavior the way we forecast the weather?
这促使我——作为一名受过专业训练的火山学家，现在写了很多有关该领域的文章——想知道：我们与预测天气的方式预测火山行为有多接近？
In this award-winning image, photographer Alberto Garcia captured a truck fleeing the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
在这张获奖照片中，摄影师阿尔贝托·加西亚 (Alberto Garcia) 捕捉到了一辆卡车逃离菲律宾皮纳图博火山灾难性喷发的画面。
Today, we know that a storm of a certain magnitude will fall on a specific city in a few days’ time.
今天，我们知道几天后一定强度的风暴将袭击特定城市。
Will scientists ever be able to say that a week from now, a certain volcano has an 80% chance of erupting in a particular way — with lava gushing, with a certain explosive force, with pyroclastic flows that will travel down its western flank?
科学家是否能够说，从现在起一周后，某座火山有 80% 的几率以某种特定方式喷发——熔岩喷涌，具有一定的爆炸力，火山碎屑流会沿着其西侧流淌？
I asked around, and I found both skepticism and a surprising degree of optimism.
我四处打听，发现人们既持怀疑态度，又令人惊讶地乐观。
“The short answer — otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this — is yes,” said Diana Roman , a volcanologist at Carnegie Science in Washington, D.C.
华盛顿卡内基科学研究所的火山学家戴安娜·罗曼 (Diana Roman) 说：“简短的回答是肯定的，否则我就不会这样做。”
Though sky watchers have anticipated the weather for millennia, contemporary scientific prediction of weather is a recent invention : The first mathematical equations grounding these models were derived at the start of the 20th century.
尽管天空观测者对天气的预测已有数千年历史，但当代天气的科学预测是最近才发明的：支撑这些模型的第一个数学方程是在 20 世纪初导出的。
Today, meteorologists can take a pandemoniac system — Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and landforms — and make accurate forecasts up to two weeks into the future.
今天，气象学家可以利用一个普遍的系统——地球的大气层、海洋和地貌——并对未来两周做出准确的预测。
Weather affects more people than volcanism — namely, everyone, all the time — but some 800 million people live within 100 kilometers of an active volcano, and some (very rare) eruptions can also affect the entire planet.
天气比火山影响的人更多——也就是说，每个人、每时每刻——但约有 8 亿人生活在距活火山 100 公里范围内，一些（非常罕见）的火山喷发也会影响整个地球。
Both weather and volcanism are complex systems that we want to understand, but the problems they present for forecasting are different.
天气和火山活动都是我们想要了解的复杂系统，但它们给预测带来的问题是不同的。
Volcanoes are baroque geologic beasts with hidden, labyrinthine plumbing.
火山是巴洛克式的地质怪兽，有着隐藏的、迷宫般的管道。
“The big difference between [volcanoes] and the weather forecasting is the weather is always happening,” said Jenni Barclay , a volcanologist at the University of Bristol in England.
英国布里斯托大学火山学家珍妮·巴克利 (Jenni Barclay) 表示：“[火山] 与天气预报之间的最大区别在于天气总是在发生。”
The atmosphere is perpetually visible and measurable to meteorologists.
气象学家永远可以看到并测量大气层。
“Even they would say they need more observations.” Magma, on the other hand, resides kilometers below Earth’s crust, and at most, active volcanoes erupt once every few decades.
“甚至他们也会说他们需要更多观察。”另一方面，岩浆位于地壳以下数公里处，活火山最多每隔几十年喷发一次。
Each volcano is also unique.
每座火山也都是独一无二的。
The architecture of the subterranean pathways that funnel magma to the surface, the chemistry of the magma, the cadence of eruptions, and the assortment of eruption styles differ from place to place.
将岩浆输送到地表的地下通道的结构、岩浆的化学成分、喷发的节奏以及喷发类型的种类因地而异。
And eruptions don’t have just one trigger.
火山喷发不仅仅只有一种触发因素。
The temperature and pressure of the magma reservoir, the weakness of the enclosing rock, the gas and crystal content, the depth of the magma, the regional motion of tectonic plates — these factors all contribute to whether a paroxysm happens or fizzles out.
岩浆库的温度和压力、围岩的脆弱性、气体和晶体的含量、岩浆的深度、构造板块的区域运动——这些因素都会影响岩浆的爆发或消失。
“Geology is chaotic,” said Marius Isken , a geophysicist at the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.
“地质学是混乱的，”德国波茨坦 GFZ 亥姆霍兹地球科学中心的地球物理学家 Marius Isken 说。
But there is order buried in the chaos.
但混乱中却埋藏着秩序。
Can we find it?
我们能找到吗？
A volcanologist from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy installs a gravitmetry station to measure magma movement within Sicily’s Mount Etna.
意大利国家地球物理和火山研究所的火山学家安装了重力测量站来测量西西里岛埃特纳火山内的岩浆运动。
I imagine volcanoes as orchestras composed of hundreds of different instruments.
我把火山想象成由数百种不同乐器组成的管弦乐队。
Forecasting eruptions isn’t about hearing the music.
预测火山喷发与听音乐无关。
We already do that: Seismometers sense the cracking of rock as magma ascends; ground sensors and satellites can track shifts in the crust, indicating where magma is flowing; gas detectors reveal when magma rises to shallow depths, depressurizes, and emits noxious fumes.
我们已经这样做了：地震仪检测到岩浆上升时岩石的破裂；地面传感器和卫星可以跟踪地壳的变化，指示岩浆流动的位置；气体探测器可以探测到岩浆何时上升到浅层、减压并散发出有毒烟雾。
The challenge comes in knowing how the symphony will develop to a climax, long before it gets underway.
挑战在于，在交响曲开始之前很久就知道它如何发展到高潮。
Today, at the most comprehensively monitored volcanoes, the best that volcanologists can normally offer is not prediction but a form of acute caution.
如今，在最全面监测的火山上，火山学家通常能提供的最好的不是预测，而是一种高度警惕。
Often, alert systems — including those used by the U.S. Geological Survey — notify the public if a volcano is exhibiting heightened or escalating unrest.
通常，警报系统（包括美国地质调查局使用的警报系统）会在火山骚乱加剧或升级时通知公众。
But that doesn’t mean an eruption is imminent.
但这并不意味着火山即将爆发。
“Only 50% of volcanic unrest that looks like it’s going to be an eruption ends up in an eruption,” said Jessica Johnson , a geophysicist at the University of East Anglia in England.
英国东安格利亚大学地球物理学家杰西卡·约翰逊表示：“只有 50% 看起来像是要喷发的火山活动最终会喷发。”
On the other hand, some volcanoes prefer to ambush us, even when smothered in instrumentation.
另一方面，一些火山更喜欢伏击我们，即使是在仪器窒息的情况下。
Pockets of highly pressurized water trapped just below the surface can be heated by adjacent bodies of magma.
地表下方的高压水可以被邻近的岩浆体加热。
If that pocket ruptures, a dangerous steam explosion follows, which can then unleash imprisoned magma.
如果这个口袋破裂，就会发生危险的蒸汽爆炸，然后释放出被囚禁的岩浆。
This type of eruption often occurs with no discernible warning signs, and it’s like a land mine going off next to a buried mountain of dynamite.
这种类型的喷发通常没有明显的警告信号，就像埋在炸药山旁边的地雷爆炸一样。
Small eruptions of the Soufrière Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat preceded destructive large eruptions in 1997.
加勒比海蒙特塞拉特岛上的苏弗里耶尔山火山在 1997 年发生大规模破坏性喷发之前曾发生过小规模喷发。
More predictive detail can come if a volcano has been studied over the course of several eruption cycles.
如果对一座火山的几个喷发周期进行研究，就可以得到更多的预测细节。
At certain peaks, such as Italy’s Stromboli and Etna volcanoes, which regularly spout fountains of lava, scientists can confidently forecast an outburst.
在某些山峰，例如意大利的斯特龙博利火山和埃特纳火山，它们会定期喷出熔岩喷泉，科学家可以自信地预测火山喷发。
“We have systems that can tell us that in a few hours, the volcano will erupt,” said Maurizio Ripepe , a geophysicist at the University of Florence.
佛罗伦萨大学地球物理学家毛里齐奥·里佩佩说：“我们的系统可以告诉我们，几个小时后，火山就会喷发。”
Using seismology and ground deformation measurements, scientists at other volcanoes, including Hawai‘i’s Kīlauea and those on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula , can track magma migrating underground with such staggering precision that they know exactly where it will emerge as lava, to within an hour or so.
利用地震学和地面变形测量，包括夏威夷基拉韦厄火山和冰岛雷克雅内斯半岛火山在内的其他火山的科学家可以以惊人的精度追踪岩浆在地下的迁移，他们可以在一小时左右的时间内准确地知道岩浆将在哪里以熔岩形式出现。
But such precise forecasts are “relatively unusual,” said Tom Winder , a volcano seismologist at the University of Iceland.
但冰岛大学火山地震学家汤姆·温德表示，如此精确的预测“相对不寻常”。
These are frequently active volcanoes, unlikely to produce a major explosive event, and people in surrounding communities generally know to be wary of them.
这些火山通常是活火山，不太可能发生重大爆炸事件，周围社区的人们通常都知道要对它们保持警惕。
In most other cases, the earliest warning times — perhaps an hour or so before the eruption — aren’t always enough to get people to safety.
在大多数其他情况下，最早的警告时间（可能是火山爆发前一小时左右）并不总是足以让人们抵达安全地带。
Forecasting eruptions is a big ask because volcanoes cannot be reduced to simple models.
预测火山喷发是一个很大的问题，因为火山无法简化为简单的模型。
They’re baroque geologic beasts with hidden, labyrinthine plumbing.
它们是巴洛克式的地质野兽，有着隐藏的、迷宫般的管道。
Twenty years ago, during my first year as a geoscience undergraduate, a lecturer told me that predicting when and where the next major eruption would take place was a pipe dream — the implication being that volcanoes are far too idiosyncratic and mercurial to have much in common with one another.
二十年前，在我读地球科学本科生的第一年，一位讲师告诉我，预测下一次大规模喷发发生的时间和地点是一个白日梦——这意味着火山太过怪异和反复无常，彼此之间没有太多共同点。
That comment felt off even then.
即使在当时，这个评论也让人感觉不舒服。
After all, they are all vessels of immense pressure and heat.
毕竟，它们都是承受巨大压力和热量的容器。
Their schematics may differ.
它们的原理图可能有所不同。
But molten rock flows through all of them, and eventually, something cracks, breaks, and explodes.
但熔岩流过所有这些，最终，一些东西破裂、破裂和爆炸。
There were many signals that Mount St. Helens was going to erupt in 1980, but the form of the eruption was unexpected.
1980年，有很多迹象表明圣海伦斯火山将要喷发，但喷发的形式却出人意料。
The event led to the development of more sophisticated monitoring systems in the United States.
该事件导致美国开发出更复杂的监控系统。
Jamie Marshall/Tribaleye Images
杰米·马歇尔/Tribaleye Images
Everyone I spoke to agreed that scientists still need to crack a vital piece of the volcano forecasting puzzle.
与我交谈过的每个人都同意，科学家仍然需要破解火山预测难题的一个重要部分。
“We don’t even fully understand the underlying physics ,” Roman said.
“我们甚至没有完全理解底层的物理原理，”罗曼说。
What causes a magma reservoir to transition from a stable state to catastrophic failure?
是什么导致岩浆库从稳定状态转变为灾难性破坏？
“They have to have shared physics,” she said.
“他们必须拥有共同的物理学，”她说。
If those underlying equations can be discovered, perhaps we can apply them to all volcanoes and output values that tell us, with high accuracy, when the next eruption is due, and what its shape may be.
如果能够发现这些基本方程，也许我们可以将它们应用于所有火山和输出值，这些值可以高精度地告诉我们下一次喷发的时间及其形状。
Scientists have already identified some of these governing equations, but they only apply after eruptions have begun.
科学家们已经确定了其中一些控制方程，但它们仅在喷发开始后才适用。
Using more than a century of observations, researchers have largely derived the physics of volcanic hazards — particularly lava flows and pyroclastic flows.
通过一个多世纪的观察，研究人员在很大程度上得出了火山灾害的物理原理，特别是熔岩流和火山碎屑流。
For examples, the Navier-Stokes equations , which describe how fluids of all kinds move, have been successfully applied to both of these hazards, while the heat equation reveals how and when these volcanic fluids cool down.
例如，描述各种流体如何移动的纳维-斯托克斯方程已成功应用于这两种危险，而热方程则揭示了这些火山流体如何以及何时冷却。
Today, they allow experts to predict, for specific volcanoes, where outpourings will emerge, how far the different kinds of flows will reach, and how quickly it will all happen.
如今，它们使专家能够预测特定火山的喷发地点、不同类型的喷流将到达多远以及发生的速度。
This work saves lives, but it’s a fraction of the forecasting dilemma.
这项工作可以挽救生命，但这只是预测困境的一小部分。
Using our weather analogy, this is like saying, “Once the rain starts to fall, we can forecast what watersheds might flood,” Poland said.
使用我们的天气类比，这就像说，“一旦开始下雨，我们就可以预测哪些流域可能会发生洪水，”波兰说。
Knowing when the storm will start requires getting at the subsurface physics of magma reservoirs.
要知道风暴何时开始，需要了解岩浆库的地下物理学。
For now, eruption warnings are based on recognizing patterns in measurable geophysical signals, such as an escalation of seismic activity, that precede eruptions.
目前，喷发警报是基于识别可测量的地球物理信号的模式，例如喷发前的地震活动升级。
But correlation isn’t enough for prediction if the patterns aren’t consistent, which is often the case.
但如果模式不一致（这种情况经常发生），那么相关性不足以进行预测。
“What we’re trying to do is looking at the causative relationships there …
“我们正在尝试做的是研究其中的因果关系......
to understand the physics,” Johnson said.
了解物理学，”约翰逊说。
“If you understand what those patterns mean, [then] when those patterns change, we’re not that stuck.”
“如果你理解这些模式的含义，那么当这些模式发生变化时，我们就不会陷入困境。”
Johnson is part of a new project named Ex-X: Expecting the Unexpected , a multidisciplinary effort led by the University of Bristol to investigate the drivers of dangerous volcanic escalations.
约翰逊是一个名为“Ex-X：期待意外”的新项目的一部分，该项目是布里斯托大学领导的一项多学科努力，旨在调查危险火山升级的驱动因素。
Researchers are focusing on the volcanoes of the Eastern Caribbean, which erupt relatively frequently and can quickly transition from effusive-style, lava-heavy eruptions to sudden, catastrophic, explosive ones.
研究人员正在关注东加勒比地区的火山，这些火山喷发相对频繁，并且可以迅速从大量熔岩喷发转变为突然、灾难性的爆炸性喷发。
La Soufrière, on the island of St. Vincent, provided a recent example of this: In December 2020, the volcano began expelling a viscous mass of lava, which continued for several months.
圣文森特岛上的拉苏弗里耶尔提供了一个最近的例子：2020年12月，火山开始喷出粘稠的熔岩团，这种情况持续了几个月。
Then multiple explosions threw pyroclastic flows down its slopes.
随后，多次爆炸将火山碎屑流抛下斜坡。
The eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 left a 2.5-kilometer-wide caldera where the summit has once been.
1991 年皮纳图博火山喷发，在山顶曾经所在的地方留下了一个 2.5 公里宽的火山口。
It is now Lake Pinatubo.
现在是皮纳图博湖。
T.
T。
J.
J。
Casadevall/U.S. Geological Survey
卡萨德瓦尔/美国地质调查局
As part of this work, hundreds of seismometers, as well as networks of fiber-optic cables, will be used to record even the tiniest of earthquakes, during periods of tranquility and unrest.
作为这项工作的一部分，数百台地震仪以及光纤电缆网络将被用来记录在平静和动荡时期发生的最微小的地震。
This monitoring effort will be aided by machine learning programs that will be taught to identify minute shifts in the seismic soundtrack of these volcanoes.
这项监测工作将得到机器学习程序的帮助，这些程序将被教导识别这些火山地震音轨中的微小变化。
In recent years, these programs have been used to process a huge volume of data far more proficiently and efficiently than scientists can manage alone.
近年来，这些程序已被用来处理大量数据，其熟练程度和效率远远高于科学家单独处理的能力。
This work has already revealed myriad previously hidden magmatic pathways beneath volcanoes while also permitting scientists to track, almost in real time, magma barreling through the crust.
这项工作已经揭示了火山下方无数以前隐藏的岩浆通道，同时也使科学家能够几乎实时地追踪穿过地壳的岩浆。
The idea of Ex-X is to gain unprecedented detail on how tiny changes in the behavior or position of magma can lead to eruptions.
Ex-X 的想法是获得前所未有的细节，了解岩浆行为或位置的微小变化如何导致火山喷发。
Those insights can, in turn, illuminate some of the underlying physics.
这些见解反过来又可以阐明一些基础物理学。
All these Caribbean volcanoes, diverse though they may be, could have a shared set of fluid dynamics equations.
所有这些加勒比火山尽管各不相同，但都可能具有一组共享的流体动力学方程。
You would like to think, OK, volcanoes are pretty well monitored.
你可能会想，好吧，火山受到了很好的监控。
But they’re not.
但他们不是。
However, seismology won’t be enough by itself.
然而，地震学本身还不够。
“We lack the physical understanding of what exactly is going on in a magma chamber,” Poland said.
“我们对岩浆库中到底发生了什么缺乏物理了解，”波兰说。
What causes the unstoppable nucleation of bubbles within a body of magma, which can propel hot, buoyant magma through the crust above with soda can–like effervescence?
是什么导致岩浆体内的气泡不可阻挡地成核，从而推动炽热、有浮力的岩浆穿过上面的地壳，产生像汽水罐一样的泡腾？
What combination of molten rock, crystals, and gas is primed to trigger an eruption?
熔岩、晶体和气体的哪种组合会引发火山喷发？
What drives an eruption to switch from expelling oozing lava to blasting ash and rock into the sky?
是什么促使火山喷发从喷出渗出的熔岩转变为将火山灰和岩石喷向天空？
Geochemistry is essential to this effort, too.
地球化学对于这项工作也至关重要。
Today, scientists scoop up lava or ash, fresh or ancient, around volcanoes — both during an eruption and in the interregnum between them — to identify subtle changes in chemical makeup.
如今，科学家们在火山周围（无论是在火山喷发期间还是在火山爆发的间歇期）舀取火山周围的熔岩或火山灰，无论是新鲜的还是古老的，以识别化学成分的细微变化。
Scientists use sophisticated numerical models to simulate volcanic viscera, but this is still educated guesswork.
科学家使用复杂的数值模型来模拟火山内脏，但这仍然是有根据的猜测。
Laboratory experiments, though, may be able to ground these models.
不过，实验室实验也许能够为这些模型奠定基础。
Replicating the most extreme phenomena in laboratory settings is not easy.
在实验室环境中复制最极端的现象并不容易。
But in successful experiments in the fall of 2025, scientists re-created the conditions present at the birth of planets, complete with simulacra of magma and miniature hydrogen atmospheres.
但在 2025 年秋季的成功实验中，科学家们重现了行星诞生时的条件，包括岩浆和微型氢大气的模拟。
“You can’t just make a magma chamber at the surface of the Earth,” Poland said.
“你不能只在地球表面建造一个岩浆室，”波兰说。
“But we’re a heck of a lot closer to that sort of thing than we were a while ago.”
“但我们比不久前更接近这种事情了。”
Ideally, volcanologists want to try something else truly ambitious: “Drill all the way down to where there is some magma sitting at depth, and really see these processes in situ, rather than just seeing the results of them,” Winder said.
理想情况下，火山学家希望尝试其他真正雄心勃勃的事情：“一直钻到深处有岩浆的地方，真正在原地看到这些过程，而不仅仅是看到它们的结果，”温德说。
That is one of the objectives of the Krafla Magma Testbed in Iceland.
这是冰岛克拉夫拉岩浆试验台的目标之一。
This literally groundbreaking facility is set to become the world’s first direct magma observatory.
这个真正具有开创性的设施将成为世界上第一个直接岩浆观测站。
“There’s no reason we can’t think that at some point in the future, we can have volcano forecasts that are like weather forecasts,” Poland said.
波兰说：“我们没有理由不认为在未来的某个时候，我们可以像天气预报一样进行火山预报。”
But deriving a unified theory of volcanism will require a geologic Manhattan Project.
但导出统一的火山作用理论需要地质学曼哈顿计划。
First, a constellation of highly diverse volcanoes will need to be slathered in geophysical instrumentation and consistently monitored over multiple eruption cycles — meaning many decades.
首先，需要使用地球物理仪器对高度多样化的火山群进行持续监测，并在多个喷发周期（即数十年）内进行持续监测。
“You would like to think, OK, volcanoes are pretty well monitored.
“你可能会想，好吧，火山受到了很好的监控。
But they’re not,” Roman said.
但他们不是，”罗曼说。
“There’s a handful of Cadillac volcanoes that have permanent networks.” Even many of the United States’ most dangerous volcanoes, along the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest (home to the notorious Mount St. Helens , for example, and the precarious Mount Rainier ), are only partly covered in a limited number of sensors.
“有一些凯迪拉克火山拥有永久的网络。”即使是美国许多最危险的火山，例如太平洋西北部喀斯喀特山脉（例如臭名昭著的圣海伦斯火山和危险的雷尼尔山的所在地），也只是部分被有限数量的传感器覆盖。
With such a torrent of geophysical and geochemical information, scientists (aided by machine learning) can determine the commonalities that would allow them to derive foundational geophysical laws.
有了如此大量的地球物理和地球化学信息，科学家（在机器学习的帮助下）可以确定共同点，从而得出基本的地球物理定律。
Then they can build the archetypal volcano model: one that is very generic but can be layered onto any volcano in the world.
然后他们可以构建原型火山模型：一个非常通用但可以分层到世界上任何火山的模型。
The Soufrière Hills volcano in Montserrat buried the small town of Plymouth in 30 feet of mud and ash.
蒙特塞拉特岛的苏弗里耶尔山火山将普利茅斯小镇掩埋在 30 英尺深的泥浆和火山灰中。
Let’s say you’re concerned about Japan’s explosion-prone Mount Fuji.
假设您担心日本容易发生爆炸的富士山。
Scientists could feed its current state of seismicity, its magmatic geochemistry, and the rate at which it’s deforming into the model.
科学家可以将其当前的地震活动状态、岩浆地球化学及其变形速度输入模型中。
Software driven by those governing equations could then virtually fast-forward the volcano toward its most probable eruption date, while also describing the likeliest eruption style and duration.
由这些控制方程驱动的软件实际上可以将火山快速推进到最可能的喷发日期，同时还描述最可能的喷发类型和持续时间。
Some experts suspect that there may be several volcano archetypes — ones that prefer to throw out lava, for instance, or the especially explosive kind.
一些专家怀疑可能有几种火山原型——例如，那些更喜欢喷出熔岩的火山，或者是特别容易爆炸的类型。
Either way, this eruption forecasting concept finds favor with several volcanologists.
不管怎样，这种喷发预测概念受到了一些火山学家的青睐。
“That’s definitely the right way to be thinking about it,” said Zach Ross , a geophysicist and machine learning researcher at the California Institute of Technology.
“这绝对是正确的思考方式，”加州理工学院的地球物理学家和机器学习研究员扎克·罗斯 (Zach Ross) 说。
But skepticism about accurate forecasting remains.
但对准确预测的怀疑仍然存在。
“At the moment, I can only imagine it in exceptional circumstances,” Winder said, citing volcanoes that erupt with great frequency, like those in Hawai‘i or Iceland.
“目前，我只能在特殊情况下想象这种情况，”温德说，他引用了夏威夷或冰岛等频繁喷发的火山。
Other people I spoke with are more sanguine, suggesting that while certain volcanoes will always be troublesome — those that erupt once every few centuries, for example, or those that seem to go from silent to violent in a matter of hours — many eruptions should be forecastable.
与我交谈过的其他人则更为乐观，他们认为，虽然某些火山总是会带来麻烦——例如，那些每隔几个世纪喷发一次的火山，或者那些似乎在几个小时内就从沉默变成猛烈的火山——但许多火山喷发应该是可以预测的。
“What we’re really missing is more data.
“我们真正缺少的是更多数据。
We have not really observed that many different systems going off,” Isken said.
我们还没有真正观察到许多不同的系统发生故障，”伊斯肯说。
“But I think that gap will fill over time.”
“但我认为随着时间的推移，这个缺口将会被填补。”
Roman is part of the in-development Subduction Zones in Four Dimensions project, or SZ4D .
Roman 是正在开发的四维俯冲带项目 (SZ4D) 的一部分。
If sufficiently funded, this international effort will carry out an intense monitoring campaign along various subduction zones — vast areas where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, including sites in Chile, Alaska, and the Cascades — to study the triggers of major landslides, earthquakes, and eruptions.
如果资金充足，这项国际努力将在各个俯冲带（一个板块潜入另一个板块下方的广阔区域，包括智利、阿拉斯加和喀斯喀特地区）开展密集的监测活动，以研究重大山体滑坡、地震和火山喷发的触发因素。
She hopes that the underlying physics leading to each of these hazards will emerge.
她希望能够揭示导致这些危险的潜在物理原理。
SZ4D would be a colossal scientific undertaking.
SZ4D 将是一项巨大的科学事业。
But similarly mammoth endeavors were needed to understand how the weather works , and how Earth’s climate is rapidly changing .
但同样需要付出巨大的努力来了解天气如何运作以及地球气候如何迅速变化。
You’ve got to start somewhere.
你必须从某个地方开始。
“It’s time for a big push,” Roman said.
“是时候大力推动了，”罗曼说。
Every day, volcanologists perform scientific miracles to protect millions of people from eruptions.
火山学家每天都在创造科学奇迹，保护数百万人免受火山喷发的影响。
It’s thrilling for me to imagine a future in which people get not just hours, but days or even weeks to get themselves out of harm’s way.
让我兴奋的是想象一个未来，人们不仅可以用几个小时，还可以用几天甚至几周的时间来摆脱伤害。
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辱骂、亵渎、自我推销、误导、语无伦次或偏离主题的评论将被拒绝。
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