The winds that made Asia
亞洲季風
Originated by The Economist,June 29
翻譯：鳳梨是只胖柯基
校閱：Yates
圖源：網絡，版權歸原作者所有
季風：由於大陸和海洋在一年之中增熱和冷卻程度不同，在大陸和海洋之間大範圍的、風向隨季節有規律改變的風，稱為季風(monsoon)。形成季風最根本的原因，是地球表面性質不同，熱力反映的差異。由海陸分布、大氣環流、大陸地形等因素造成的，以一年為周期的大範圍的冬夏季節盛行風向相反的現象。分為夏季風和冬季風。
The word 「monsoon」 blew into English from Portuguese in the late 16th century not because European sailors cared about the rain on alien plains, but because when they followed Vasco da Gama around the tip of Africa they came across a type of wind they had never encountered, and for which they had no name.
英語中「季風（monsoon）」來源於葡萄牙語，16世紀晚期,當時的歐洲水手並不是關心其他平原上的風,而是當他們跟著葡萄牙航海家瓦斯科·達·伽馬（Vasco da Gama）抵達非洲時，他們遇到一種他們從未遇到的風,且不知道這種風的名字。
The Portuguese monção comes in its turn from the Arabic, mawsim, which means 「season」. In the Atlantic Ocean, the only one to which the Portuguese were accustomed, winds in any given place tend to blow in pretty much the same direction throughout the year, though their intensities change with the season and their prevailing direction changes with the latitude. In the Indian Ocean, the prevailing winds flip back and forth.
葡萄牙語「monção」一詞則來自阿拉伯語「mawsim」，意思是「季節」。葡萄牙人唯一在大西洋上習慣的是，任何地方的風一年到頭都傾向於吹向幾乎相同的方向，儘管它們的強度隨著季節而變化，它們的主要方向隨著緯度而變化。在印度洋上，盛行風來回變換方向。
盛行風(Prevailing Winds) 又稱最多風向，是指在一個地區某一時段內出現頻數最多的風或風向。通常按日、月、季和年的時段用統計方法求出相應時段的盛行風向。
This is because of the role played in the monsoon by the 「intertropical convergence zone」 (ITCZ) which encircles the world close to the equator. The ITCZ is a zone of low pressure over the warmest water. In all the oceans, this low pressure draws in steady winds from the south-east known as the southern trade winds.
這是因為「熱帶輻合帶」(ITCZ)在季風中所起的作用。ITCZ是在最溫暖的水面上形成的一個低壓區。在所有的海洋中，這種低氣壓會吸引來自東南方向的穩定的風，也就是所謂的南風。
熱帶輻合帶（Intertropical Convergence Zone. ITCZ) 是南北兩半球信風氣流形成的輻合地帶，又稱為赤道輻合帶。由於輻合帶區的氣壓值比附近地區的低，也稱為赤道低壓帶或赤道槽等。它是熱帶地區主要的、持久的、具有行星尺度的大型天氣系統，其生消、強弱、移動和變化，對熱帶地區長、中、短期天氣變化影響極大。
During the northern hemisphere’s winter, the ITCZ sits south of the equator in the Indian Ocean. As warmth creeps north, so does the ITCZ, becoming a dynamic part of the monsoon. It ends up nestled against the Himalayas, bringing the southern trades with it. But their move from the southern hemisphere to the northern, and the constraining effect of high pressure over Africa, sees them twisted from south-easterlies to south-westerlies. When these south-westerly trades pick up in late spring—wind speeds in the Arabian Sea can double over a few weeks—the rains are on their way to Thiruvananthapuram.
在北半球的冬季，ITCZ位於赤道以南的印度洋上。隨著溫度向北蔓延，ITCZ也逐漸成為季風的活躍部分。它最終依偎在喜馬拉雅山脈旁，帶來了南部信風。但它們從南半球向北半球的移動，以及非洲上空的高壓的制約作用，使它們從東南向西南方向扭曲。當這些西南方向的信風在春末回升時——阿拉伯海的風速在幾周內就會翻倍——降雨就會到達特裡凡得琅（印度西南部海邊城市）。
信風（又稱貿易風）指的是在低空從副熱帶高壓帶吹向赤道低氣壓帶的風。信風（trade wind）在赤道兩邊的低層大氣中，北半球吹東北風，南半球吹東南風。
Just as coastal breezes turn around at set of sun, when the land cools fast and the sea stays warm, so monsoons reverse in winter. This is true both for the South Asian monsoon and the East Asian monsoon, which affects Indo-China, the Philippines, southern China, Taiwan, Korea and part of Japan. As the land cools in the autumn, north-easterly winds replace the south-westerlies (see map). Because the winds are mostly dry they are not so important to farmers, though they do bring rain to some parts of southern India. But they matter a great deal to navigation, and thus to human history. The monsoon rains feed what has always been the most populous part of the human world. It is the monsoon winds, though, which brought those people together to form Asia.
就像太陽落山時，海岸的微風會轉向一樣，當陸地迅速降溫，海水保持溫暖，冬季的季風也會逆轉方向。南亞季風和東亞季風都是如此，它們影響著中南半島、菲律賓、華南、中國臺灣、韓國和日本的部分地區。隨著秋季陸地降溫，東北風取代了西南風(見下圖)。因為風大多是乾燥的，所以對農民來說並不那麼重要，儘管它們確實給印度南部的一些地區帶來了雨水。但它們對航海，乃至人類歷史都有著重要的意義。季風帶來的雨水一直滋養了人類世界上人口最多的地區。然而，正是季風將這些人聚集在一起，形成了亞洲。
Winds which reverse with the seasons shaped a maritime world stretching from the Strait of Hormuz in the north-west to the island archipelagoes of South-East Asia, from Madagascar in the south-west to Japan. With patience, this whole world could be traversed in both directions, with vessels set fair for east and north in summer, west and south in the winter—and with layovers enforced by the tropical storms called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in East Asia and cyclones in the Indian Ocean (the term comes from the Greek kukloma, the coil of a serpent). The winds of the South Asian monsoon suppress the conditions needed for cyclones to form. When the monsoon is over, they come out to play.
風向隨季節而逆轉，形成了一個靠海生存的世界，從西北的荷姆茲海峽到東南亞群島，從西南的馬達加斯加到日本。如果有耐心,可以（跟著季風的）兩個方向遍歷整個世界：夏天船順著季風從東飄向北方，冬天船順著季風從西飄向南方。中間可能會被熱帶氣旋停下——在大西洋上的熱帶氣旋稱為颶風（hurricane），在東亞的稱為颱風（typhoon），在印度洋上的稱為旋風（cyclone這個詞來自希臘語「kukloma」,一圈蛇的意思）。當季風結束後，這些熱帶氣旋就出現了。
Had sailors, traders and holy men not followed their lead on the monsoon winds, Asia would not be the heterogenous place it has been through history—and remains today, despite the nationalist narratives and more strictly bordered lives its 20th-century states forced on their newly minted citizens. Tamil merchants from southern India put up inscribed stones in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) and Thailand around the seventh century AD. They seem to have reached the southern Chinese emporium of Canton (Guangzhou) not much later. India’s influence is intense in the extraordinary ninth-century Buddhist temple of Borobudur on Java. Hindu kingdoms arose in the Indonesian archipelago. Bali represents surely the most embellished version of the Hindu faith today. Via India, Islam spread east, too, after Arab merchants carried their faith to the Malabar Coast of south-west India and, eventually, to Quanzhou on China’s eastern seaboard, where 13th-century Muslims lie beneath gravestones inscribed in Arabic. Later, with the Portuguese, Roman Catholicism came to Goa and then, via the south China coast, to Japan.
如果水手、商人和神職人員沒有跟隨季風的腳步，亞洲就不會成為歷史上的異質之地——儘管20世紀的國家把民族主義的情懷和更嚴格的邊界生活強加給新出生的公民，但今天的亞洲依然如此特殊。公元7世紀左右，來自印度南部的泰米爾商人在緬甸(現在的緬甸)和泰國豎立了刻有文字的石頭。他們似乎在不久之後就到達了中國南方的貿易之都——廣州。印度對爪哇島上非凡的九世紀佛教寺廟婆羅浮屠的影響是巨大的。印度王國在印度尼西亞群島興起。峇里島無疑是當今印度教信仰中最華麗的版本。在阿拉伯商人把他們的信仰帶到印度西南部的馬拉巴爾海岸，並最終傳到中國東部沿海的泉州之後，伊斯蘭教也通過印度向東傳播。13世紀的穆斯林就躺在泉州用阿拉伯語鐫刻的墓碑下。後來，隨著葡萄牙人，羅馬天主教來到印度果阿邦，然後，通過中國南部沿海，到達日本。
Arabs, east Africans, Bengalis, Tamils, Parsis, Malays, Chinese, 「Manila men」 (Filipinos) and Okinawans met and traded, sometimes sojourning in each other’s lands, sometimes returning on the next season’s winds. When European merchant venturers—Portuguese, Dutch, French and British—came to the region they joined in these seasonal rhythms. The East India Company put the monsoon winds to the service of joint-stock capitalism, as 「East Indiamen」, heavily armed merchant ships, carried Indian silks and cottons, as well as Chinese tea, back to Europe once a year.
阿拉伯人、東非人、孟加拉人、泰米爾人、帕西人、馬來人、中國人、「馬尼拉人」(菲律賓人)和衝繩島人相遇並進行貿易，有時在彼此的土地上逗留，有時在下一次季風中返回家鄉。當歐洲商人和冒險家——葡萄牙人、荷蘭人、法國人和英國人——來到這個地區時，他們也加入了這種季節性的節奏。東印度公司利用季風為股份制資本主義服務，通過全副武裝的「東印度人」商船，每年將印度絲綢、棉花以及中國茶葉運回歐洲一次。
In the 19th century, with the coming of coal, steam and iron, the Europeans broke with seasonal rhythms, establishing colonial dominance over Asia by means of efficient weaponry and Suez-crossing steamships that could defy the wind to allow a constant flow of raw materials one way—cotton, jute, grain, timber, tin—and returned manufactures the other. The Asian ports established or greatly expanded at the time—Bombay (present-day Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chennai), Batavia (Jakarta), Manila, Shanghai—marked the birth of a fossil-fuel age. The winds were forgotten; but they were not unchanged. As the build-up of atmospheric greenhouse gases which began back then traps ever more heat the monsoons will change; the vast clouds of pollutants created by Asia’s now endemic use of coal and oil are affecting them too, in ways that meteorologists do not yet understand. And those great low-lying colonial ports will prove far more susceptible to sudden flooding and rises in sea level than older, more defensible ports farther up rivers were. The 90m inhabitants of Asia’s great seaboard cities are among the most vulnerable to the Industrial Revolution’s longest legacy.
在19世紀,隨著煤炭、蒸汽機和鐵器的發展,歐洲人打破季節性節奏,建立殖民統治亞洲。通過有效的武器和穿越蘇伊士運河的蒸汽船對抗季風，使得棉花、黃麻、穀物、木材、罐頭等原材料源源不斷進入亞洲，再通過加工製成產品銷往全球。在當時的孟買(現在的孟買)、加爾各答(加爾各答)、馬德拉斯(欽奈)、巴達維亞(雅加達)、馬尼拉和上海，亞洲港口的建立或大規模擴張標誌著化石燃料時代的誕生。季風或許被遺忘了;但它們並非一成不變。隨著從那時起就開始積聚的大氣溫室氣體正在吸收越來越多的熱量，季風將發生變化;亞洲現在普遍使用煤炭和石油，由此產生的大量汙染物雲也在影響著季風，氣象學家尚不了解具體的影響方式。而且，事實將證明，那些地勢較低的殖民時期的大型港口，比河流上遊更古老、防禦能力更強的港口，更容易受到突發洪水和海平面上升的影響。亞洲沿海大城市的9000萬居民是工業革命遺留時間最長的問題中最脆弱的群體之一。
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