Adam: So, Michelle, shall we make a start on our presentation? We haven’t got that much time left.

亚当：那么，米歇尔，我们开始做演示吧？我们剩下的时间不多了。

Michelle: No, Adam. But at least we’ve done all the background reading. I found it really interesting – I’d never even heard of the Laki eruption before this.

米歇尔：不，亚当。但至少我们已经做了所有的背景阅读。我觉得真的很有趣——在这之前我甚至从未听说过Laki火山爆发。

Adam: Me neither. I suppose 1783 is a long time ago.

亚当：我也是。我想1783年确实是很久以前了。

Michelle: But it was a huge eruption and it had such devastating consequences.

米歇尔：但那次是一次巨大的火山爆发，造成了灾难性的后果。

Adam: I know. It was great there were so many primary sources to look at. It really gives you a sense of how catastrophic the volcano was.

亚当：我知道。很幸运有这么多一手资料供我们查阅。它真正让你感受到这座火山有多么灾难性。

People were really trying to make sense of the science for the first time.

人们当时真的在努力首次理解这个科学现象。

Michelle: That’s right. But what I found more significant was how it impacted directly and indirectly on political events, as well as having massive social and economic consequences.

米歇尔：没错。但我认为更重要的是它如何直接和间接地影响了政治事件，以及产生了巨大的社会和经济后果。

Adam: I know. That should be the main focus of our presentation.

亚当：我知道。这应该是我们演示的主要焦点。

Michelle: The observations made by people at the time were interesting, weren’t they?

米歇尔：当时人们的观察很有意思，不是吗？

Adam:I mean, they all gave a pretty consistent account of what happened, even if they didn’t always use the same terminology.

我的意思是，他们都对所发生的事情给出了相当一致的描述，即使他们并不总是使用相同的术语。

Adam: Yeah. I was surprised there were so many weather stations established by that time – so, you know, you can see how the weather changed, often by the hour.

亚当：是的。我对当时已经建立了这么多气象站感到惊讶——你知道，你可以看到天气是如何变化的，通常每小时一变。

Michelle: Right. Writers at the time talked about the Laki haze to describe the volcanic fog that spread across Europe.

米歇尔：对。当时的作家们谈论到"Laki haze"，用来描述蔓延到欧洲的火山雾。

They all realised that this wasn’t the sort of fog they were used to – and of course this was in pre-industrial times – so they hadn’t experienced sulphur-smelling fog before.

他们都意识到这不是他们所熟悉的那种雾气——当然那是在工业前时代——所以他们以前没有经历过有硫磺气味的雾气。

Adam: No, that’s true.

亚当：是的，没错。

Michelle: Reports from the period blamed the haze for an increase in headaches, respiratory issues and asthma attacks. And they all describe how it covered the sun and made it look a strange red colour.

米歇尔：当时的报告将这种雾气归咎于引发头痛、呼吸问题和哮喘发作的增加。他们还都描述了如何遮蔽了阳光并使其呈现奇怪的红色。

Adam: Must have been very weird.

亚当：一定很奇怪。

Michelle: It’s interesting that Benjamin Franklin wrote about the haze. Did you read that? He was the American ambassador in Paris at the time.

米歇尔：有趣的是本杰明·富兰克林也写了关于这种雾气的文章。你读过吗？他当时是驻巴黎的美国大使。

Adam: Yeah. At first no one realised that the haze was caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

亚当：是的。起初没有人意识到这种雾气是由冰岛的火山爆发引起的。

Michelle: It was Benjamin Franklin who realised that before anyone else.

米歇尔：是本杰明·富兰克林比其他人先意识到这一点。

Adam: He’s often credited with that, apparently. But a French naturalist beat him to it – I can’t remember his name. I’d have to look it up.

亚当：他通常被认为是第一个意识到的人，显然。但有一位法国博物学家比他更早，我记不得他的名字了。我得查一下。

Then other naturalists had the same idea – all independently of each other.

然后其他博物学家也有了同样的想法——都是独立思考的。

Michelle: Oh right. We should talk about the immediate impact of the eruption, which was obviously enormous – especially in Iceland, where so many people died.

米歇尔：哦，对。我们应该谈谈火山爆发的直接影响，显然是巨大的——尤其是在冰岛，那里有这么多人死亡。

Adam: Mmm. You’d expect that – and the fact that the volcanic ash drifted so swiftly – but not that the effects would go on for so long.

亚当：嗯。这是可以预料的——以及火山灰的迅速飘散——但不会预料到影响会持续这么久。

Or that two years after the eruption, strange weather events were being reported as far away as North America and North Africa.

火山爆发两年后，甚至在北美和北非都出现了奇怪的天气事件。

Michelle: No. I found all that hard to believe too. It must have been terrible – and there was nothing anyone could do about it, even if they knew the ash cloud was coming in their direction.

米歇尔：是的。我也觉得这一切很难以置信。一定很可怕——而且无论他们知道灰云朝他们方向飘来，也无法做任何事情。

Michelle: We should run through some of the terrible consequences of the eruption experienced in different countries. There’s quite a varied range.

米歇尔：我们应该简要介绍一下不同国家在火山爆发中经历的可怕后果。范围相当广泛。

Adam: Starting with Iceland, where the impact on farming was devastating.

亚当：首先是冰岛，在那里农业受到了毁灭性的影响。

Michelle: Mmm. One of the most dramatic things there was the effect on livestock as they grazed in the fields.

米歇尔：嗯。那里最令人震惊的事情之一是牲畜在田野中吃草时受到的影响。

They were poisoned because they ate vegetation that had been contaminated with fluorine as a result of the volcanic fallout.

牲畜在田野中吃草时受到了污染的植被中的氟的毒害，导致它们中毒。

Adam: That was horrible. In Egypt, the bizarre weather patterns led to a severe drought and as a result the Nile didn’t flood, which meant the crops all failed.

亚当：那真是可怕。在埃及，奇特的气候模式导致了严重的干旱，结果尼罗河没有泛滥，作物全都失败了。

Michelle: It’s so far from where the eruption happened and yet the famine there led to more people dying than any other country. It was worse than the plague.

米歇尔：这离火山爆发发生的地方很远，但饥荒导致的死亡人数比其他任何国家都多。比瘟疫还严重。

Adam: OK. Then in the UK the mortality rate went up a lot – presumably from respiratory illnesses.

亚当：好。然后在英国，死亡率大大增加——可能是因为呼吸系统疾病。

According to one report it was about double the usual number and included an unusually high percentage of people under the age of 25.

根据一份报告，死亡人数是平时的两倍，其中年龄不到25岁的人比例异常高。

Michelle: Mmm. I think people will be surprised to hear that the weather in the USA was badly affected too..

米歇尔：嗯。我觉得人们听到美国的天气也受到了严重影响会感到惊讶。

George Washington even makes a note in his diary that they were snowbound until March in Virginia. That was before he became president.

乔治·华盛顿甚至在他的日记中记录了，弗吉尼亚州直到三月都被大雪困住。那是他成为总统之前的事情。

Adam: Yes, and there was ice floating down the Mississippi, which was unprecedented.

亚当：是的，还有密西西比河上漂浮的冰，这是前所未有的。

Michelle: Astonishing, really. Anyway, what do you think …

米歇尔：真是令人惊讶。总之，你觉得...