The Arctic Ocean may seem remote and forbidding, but to birds, whales and other animals, it’s a top-notch dining destination.

“It’s a great place to get food in the summertime, so animals are flying or swimming thousands of miles to get there,” said Kevin R. Arrigo, a biological oceanographer at Stanford University.

北極海或許顯得遙遠又難以親近，但對鳥類、鯨魚和一些其他動物來說，可是頂級的用餐地點。

史丹福大學生物海洋學家凱文．阿里戈說：「北極海是夏天捕食很棒的地方，因此，各種動物從幾千英里外飛來或游來。」

But the menu is changing. Confirming earlier research, scientists reported Wednesday that global warming is altering the ecology of the Arctic Ocean on a huge scale.

The annual production of algae, the base of the food web, increased an estimated 47 percent between 1997 and 2015, and the ocean is greening up much earlier each year.

但菜單正在改變。科學家周三提出的報告證實了先前研究的結論，全球暖化正極大規模的改變北極海的生態。

藻類是食物網的基底，在1997年到2015年之間每年產量大約增加了47%，而北極海的綠化也每一年都比前一年提早許多。

These changes are likely to have a profound impact for animals further up the food chain, such as birds, seals, polar bears and whales. But scientists still don’t know enough about the biology of the Arctic Ocean to predict what the ecosystem will look like in decades to come.

While global warming has affected the whole planet in recent decades, nowhere has been hit harder than the Arctic. Last month, temperatures in the high Arctic were as much as 36 degrees above average, according to records kept by the Danish Meteorological Institute.

這些改變可能對食物鏈更上層的動物有更深遠的影響，例如鳥類、海豹、北極熊和鯨魚。然而，科學家對北極海生物學的知識仍不足以預測未來幾十年當地生態系統的樣貌。

全球暖化近幾十年已影響整個地球，然而沒有一個地方比北極所受影響更大。根據丹麥氣象研究所的紀錄，上個月，高北極的氣溫最高時要比平均溫度高出華氏36度。

In October, the extent of sea ice was 28.5 percent below average — the lowest for the month since scientists began keeping records in 1979. The area of missing ice is the size of Alaska and Texas put together.

Since the mid-2000s, researchers like Arrigo have been trying to assess the effects of retreating ice on the Arctic ecosystem.

10月間，海冰的範圍比平均值縮小了28.5%，是自1979年科學家開始記錄以來海冰面積最小的10月。減少的海冰面積相當於阿拉斯加州和德州的總和。

自2000年代中葉以來，阿里戈之屬研究人員一直試圖評估海冰消退對北極生態的影響。

The sun returns to the Arctic each spring and melts some of the ice that formed in winter. Algae in the open water quickly spring to life and start growing.

These algae are the base of the food chain in the Arctic Ocean, grazed by krill and other invertebrates that in turn support bigger fish, mammals and birds.

每年春天太陽回到北極，使得一部分冬天形成的冰融化。開放水域的藻類緊跟著恢復生機，開始生長。

這些藻類是北極海食物鏈的最底層，磷蝦和其他無脊椎動物以它為食物，而這些動物又成為更大的魚、哺乳動物和鳥類的食物。

Arrigo and his colleagues visited the Arctic in research ships to examine algae in the water and to determine how it affected the water’s color. They then reviewed satellite images of the Arctic Ocean, relying on the color of the water to estimate how much algae was growing — what scientists call the ocean’s productivity.

The sea’s productivity was rapidly increasing, Arrigo found. Last year he and his colleagues published their latest update, estimating that the productivity of the Arctic rose 30 percent between 1998 and 2012.

阿里戈和他的同事搭乘研究船造訪北極，研究海中的藻類，並判定藻類如何影響海水的顏色。然後他們再檢視北極海的衛星畫面，根據海水的顏色估計藻類生長的量──科學家稱之為北極海的生產力。

阿里戈發現，北極海的生產力快速增加。去年他和他的同事發表他們最新的更新報告，估計北極海的生產力在1998年到2012年間提高30%。

Facing a continued surge in the homeless population, New York City officials are aggressively expanding the costly and highly criticized practice of using hotels to plug gaps in the city’s strained shelter system.

The increase has been stark: About 12 percent of the total homeless population is now being housed in hotel rooms, compared with just 4 percent in January.

對遊民人數持續激增，紐約市官員正積極擴大一種昂貴且備受度批評的作法，也就是用飯店來填補該市緊繃的收容體系的缺口。

擴大使用飯店的增幅極大：現在安置在飯店房間內的遊民約占12%，而元月時還只有4%。

On Jan. 1, the city was using 508 hotel rooms for homeless families with children, comprising 1,237 people, according to the Department of Homeless Services. On Nov. 30, 2,418 rooms were being rented for families with children, amounting to 5,798 people.

Now, the city plans to expand its hotel portfolio for homeless families by up to 436 rooms, with 225 of them reserved for families without minor children — the first time the city has earmarked hotel rooms for such families, officials said. The city also plans to add 100 or more hotel rooms for homeless individuals.

紐約市遊民服務局指出，該市為有孩童的遊民家庭提供的飯店房間，在元月一日時，計有508個，共收容1237人，而在11月30日時，租用的飯店房間已增至2418個，共收容5798人。

現在，該市打算將遊民家庭的飯店房間數量最多擴增436間，其中225間預留給沒有未成年子女的家庭。官員表示，這是該市首次為這種家庭預留飯店房間。該市還計畫為個體遊民增加100個或是更多的飯店房間。

The expansion comes as the city has struggled to address a record homeless population — an issue that could become an obstacle in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bid for re-election next year.

“Look, I own it,” de Blasio said Wednesday on WNYC radio, referring to the surge in the homeless population. “We’re arresting that growth and starting to turn it, and I think we’ll be able to show some real progress soon.”

這項擴大行動採行之際，該市正努力解決數量空前的遊民帶來的問題，而這個問題可能成為市長白思豪明年尋求連任的障礙。

白思豪周三在WNYC公共電台上提到遊民激增時說：「聽好，我承認這事。我們正在阻止這個成長態勢，並開始把它扭轉，我想我們很快地就能夠展現一些實質的進展。」

He listed some initiatives begun by his administration, including legal assistance to help renters fight eviction. “We’re going to come up with a much more comprehensive vision on homelessness in the coming months, but I can tell you that a lot of these initiatives are taking hold.”

But the increased reliance on hotels goes against de Blasio’s vow to curtail the practice. In February, a homeless woman and two of her children were fatally stabbed in a Staten Island hotel where the city had placed them because it did not have room in a shelter.

他列舉市政府已開始執行的一些方案，包括提供租房者對抗驅逐的法律協助。「我們將在未來幾個月對遊民問題提出全面許多的願景，但我可以告訴你，這些措施有很多都正在進行。」

但更加依賴飯店卻跟白思豪縮減該措施的承諾牴觸。二月時，一名女遊民跟她兩個孩子在史坦登島一家飯店內被刺死，而他們正是因為紐約市沒有收容空間才被安置在此處。

“The goal is to use hotels less and less and eventually stop using hotels altogether,” the mayor said on the day of the killings, acknowledging that there might be times when the city, which is required to provide shelter to the homeless, would have to resort to hotels as a stopgap. “But what I’m saying is the goal in the short term is to reduce the use of hotels intensely.”

Using hotel rooms is far more costly than alternatives, and advocates for the homeless say it poorly serves the needs of families: There are typically no kitchens and little privacy.

白思豪在命案發生當天說，「我們的目標是不斷減少飯店的使用，最後完全停止」，並承認必須為遊民提供住所的紐約市府有時可能不得不使用飯店應急。「但我所說的是，短期目標是積極減少飯店的使用。」

使用飯店遠比其他替代方案花錢，而衛護遊民權益的人士表示，這種作法也不符家庭的需求：通常沒有廚房且沒什麼隱私。