Over 40% of Greenland experienced melting Thursday, with total ice loss estimated to be more than 2 gigatons (equal to 2 billion tons) on just that day alone.
周四超过40%的格陵兰岛地区出现了融化现象，据估计，仅周四一天，格陵兰岛地区融化的总冰量超过了2千兆吨(相当于20亿吨)。
While Greenland is a big island filled with lots of ice, it is highly unusual for that much ice to be lost in the middle of June. The average "melt season" for Greenland runs from June to August, with the bulk of the melting occurring in July.
虽然格陵兰岛是一个大岛，冰量巨大，但在6月中旬失去大量的冰的现象是非常不寻常的。格陵兰岛的“融化季节”一般是从6月持续到8月，大部分融冰发生在7月。
To visualize how much ice that is, imagine filling the National Mall in Washington with enough ice to reach a point in the sky eight times higher than the Washington Monument (to borrow an analogy Meredith Nettles from Columbia University gave to The Washington Post).
想要使这些冰量可视化，你可以想象一下在华盛顿的国家广场堆满冰块直指天空的景象，它比华盛顿纪念碑高8倍(借用哥伦比亚大学的Meredith Nettles给华盛顿邮报的比喻)。
图片来源：视觉中国
The sudden spike in melting "is unusual, but not unprecedented," according to Thomas Mote, a research scientist at the University of Georgia who studies Greenland's climate.
乔治亚大学研究科学家托马斯莫特，他专门研究格陵兰岛气候，托马斯说，融化的突然飙升“虽然不寻常，但并非前所未有”。
"It is comparable to some spikes we saw in June of 2012," Mote told CNN, referring to the record-setting melt year of 2012 that saw almost the entire ice sheet experience melting for the first time in recorded history.“
这与我们在2012年6月看到的一些峰值相当，”Mote在美国有线电视新闻网时说，他指的是2012年创纪录的融冰年，那是有史以来几乎 整个冰盖第一次融化。
This much melting this early in the summer could be a bad sign, indicating 2019 could once again set records for the amount of Greenland ice loss.
可能今年夏季早期的大幅融冰是一个不好的迹象，这表明2019年格陵兰岛可能再次创下融冰量的记录。
