The Amazon rainforest is moving toward a “tipping point” past which trees will start to die off in large numbers, researchers have said.
研究人员称，亚马逊雨林正走向一个“临界点”，一旦超过这个临界点，树木将开始大量死亡。

The study, published in the Journal of Natural Climate Change, was conducted by scholars from the University of Exeter, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Technical University of Munich. They used satellite data from 1991 to 2016 to examine trends in deforestation.
英国埃克塞特大学、德国波茨坦气候影响研究所(PIK)和慕尼黑工业大学的学者合作，利用1991年至2016年的卫星数据来研究森林砍伐的趋势，并最终将成果发表在《自然气候变化》杂志上。

They calculated that 75 percent of the rainforest is now at risk of being unable to recover when experiencing droughts, which are also increasingly more common due to global warming.
据研究人员计算，75%的雨林遭遇干旱时面临无法恢复的风险，而由于全球变暖，干旱现象越来越普遍。

“Deforestation and climate change are likely to be the main drivers of this decline,” Niklas Boers of PIK and the Technical University of Munich told the BBC. The study has predicted that it is only a matter of decades until a “significant chunk” of the Amazon is transformed from rainforest into savannah.
波茨坦气候影响研究所和慕尼黑工业大学的尼克拉斯·伯尔斯在接受英国广播公司（BBC）采访时表示：“亚马逊雨林恢复力下降的主要原因，可能是滥伐森林和气候变化。”这项研究还预测，只需要几十年的时间，“一大片”亚马逊雨林就将从热带雨林变为大草原。

What would the world be like without the Amazon rainforest?
如果没有亚马逊雨林，世界会是什么样子?

The destruction of the Amazon rainforest, in some ways caused by global warming, will also speed up this process. “The Amazon stores lots of carbon and all of that would be released into the atmosphere, which would then further contribute to increasing temperatures and have future effects on global mean temperatures,” Professor Boulton of the University of Exeter told the BBC.
全球变暖某种程度上破坏了亚马逊雨林，而这又加速了亚马逊雨林消失。埃克塞特大学的博尔顿教授在接受英国广播公司采访时表示:“亚马逊雨林储存了大量的碳，届时所有这些碳都将释放到大气中，进一步导致气温上升，并对未来的全球平均气温产生影响。”

This worrying snowball effect means that the destruction of the Amazon will make the much larger battle against global warming more difficult.
这种令人担忧的滚雪球效应意味着，对亚马逊雨林造成破坏，将令对抗全球变暖这场更大的战役变得更加困难。

The destruction of the Amazon would also have a huge impact on the ecology of the Earth. The Amazon rainforest is home to more than 30,000 species of plants, 2.5 million species of insects, 2,500 fish, more than 1,500 bird species, 550 reptiles, and 500 mammals, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society. A savannah, a grassland environment that lacks a large variety of plant life, would be unable to host the large and varied ecosystems that currently exist in the rainforest. It is likely that a large number of species would become endangered or even extinct, as they would be unable to adjust to this new ecosystem.
破坏亚马逊雨林也会对地球的生态造成巨大影响。野生动物保护协会的数据显示，亚马逊雨林是许多生物的家园，拥有3万多种植物、250万种昆虫、2500种鱼类、1500多种鸟类、550种爬行动物和500种哺乳动物。而一个大草原，即一个缺乏大量植物生命的草原环境，将无法容纳目前存在于雨林中的大型且多样的生态系统。因为生物无法适应新的生态系统，届时很可能会有大量物种濒危，甚至灭绝。

(Translator & Editor: Li Xinzhu AND Luo Sitian)
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