We know more about other planets than our own,
我们对于其他星球的了解比我们自己的星球还多，
and today, I want to show you a new type of robot designed to help us better understand our own planet.
今天，我想要跟大家介绍一种新型机器人，设计来协助我们更了解我们的星球。
It belongs to a category known in the oceanographic community as an unmanned surface vehicle, or USV.
它隶属的类别在海洋学的圈子里称为“无人水面载具”，简称USV。
And it uses no fuel. Instead, it relies on wind power for propulsion.
它不需要燃料。相反，它靠风力来推进。
And yet, it can sail around the globe for months at a time.
但它一次就可以航行全球数个月。
So I want to share with you why we built it, and what it means for you.
我想要和大家分享的是我们打造它的原因以及它对你们的意义。
A few years ago, I was on a sailboat making its way across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Hawaii.
几年前，我坐船航行在太平洋上，从旧金山到夏威夷。
I had just spent the past 10 years working nonstop, developing video games for hundreds of millions of users,
我过去十年不停歇地努力为数百万使用者开发电玩游戏，
and I wanted to take a step back and look at the big picture and get some much-needed thinking time.
我想要退一步，看看整体全局，留给自己一些很必要的思考时间。
I was the navigator on board, and one evening, after a long session analyzing weather data and plotting our course,
我是船上的领航员，有天晚上，在花了很长的时间分析气象数据并绘出我们的航线图之后，
I came up on deck and saw this beautiful sunset.
我到甲板上，看到美丽的日落。
And a thought occurred to me: How much do we really know about our oceans?
我脑中浮现了一个念头：我们对于我们的海洋知道多少？
The Pacific was stretching all around me as far as the eye could see,
在我视线范围整个都是太平洋的延伸，
and the waves were rocking our boat forcefully, a sort of constant reminder of its untold power.
海浪让我们的船剧烈摇动，不时提醒我们未知的海洋力量有多强大。
How much do we really know about our oceans? I decided to find out.
我们对海洋知道多少？我决定要找出答案。
What I quickly learned is that we don't know very much.
我很快就了解到，我们所知甚少。
The first reason is just how vast oceans are, covering 70 percent of the planet,
第一个原因就只是海洋太广大了，覆盖了地球70%的表面，
and yet we know they drive complex planetary systems like global weather,
我们知道它们会带动复杂的地球系统，比如全球天气，
which affect all of us on a daily basis, sometimes dramatically.
这会影响到我们的日常生活，有时影响还很大。
And yet, those activities are mostly invisible to us.
但那些活动大部分都是我们看不见的。
Ocean data is scarce by any standard.
不论用什么标准来看，海洋数据都很稀少。
Back on land, I had grown used to accessing lots of sensors -- billions of them, actually.
回到陆地上，我已经很习惯使用许多传感器--其实是数十亿个。
But at sea, in situ data is scarce and expensive.
但在海上，现场数据稀少且昂贵。
Why? Because it relies on a small number of ships and buoys.
为什么？因为它要仰赖很少量的船只和浮标。
How small a number was actually a great surprise.
数量少到让人吃惊。
Our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as NOAA,
我国的海洋暨大气总署，更为人熟知的简称NOAA，
only has 16 ships, and there are less than 200 buoys offshore globally.
只有十六艘船，全球近海的浮标还不到两百个。
It is easy to understand why: the oceans are an unforgiving place, and to collect in situ data, you need a big ship,
原因很容易理解：海洋是个无情的地方，要收集现场数据就需要大船，
capable of carrying a vast amount of fuel and large crews, costing hundreds of millions of dollars each,
要能够装载大量的燃料，很多船员，每艘船都要花上数百万美金的成本，
or, big buoys tethered to the ocean floor with a four-mile-long cable and weighted down by a set of train wheels,
或者，用四英里缆线拴在海底的大型浮标，用一组火车车轮压住，
which is both dangerous to deploy and expensive to maintain.
部署十分危险，维护十分昂贵。
What about satellites, you might ask?
你可能会问，那卫星呢？
Well, satellites are fantastic, and they have taught us so much about the big picture over the past few decades.
嗯，卫星很棒，在过去数十年间，它们让我们学到了好多整体的情况。
However, the problem with satellites is they can only see through one micron of the surface of the ocean.
然而，卫星的问题在于它们只能看穿海洋表面的一微米。
They have relatively poor spatial and temporal resolution,
它们的空间和时间分辨率相对比较差，
and their signal needs to be corrected for cloud cover and land effects and other factors.
且它们的信号需要根据云层覆盖、陆地效应及其他因子来做校调。
So what is going on in the oceans? And what are we trying to measure? And how could a robot be of any use?
所以，海洋里的状况如何？我们想要测量的是什么？机器人又有什么用途？
Let's zoom in on a small cube in the ocean.
咱们把海洋的一小块放大来看。
One of the key things we want to understand is the surface,
我们想要了解的关键之一是表面，
because the surface, if you think about it, is the nexus of all air-sea interaction.
因为如果你细想，表面是所有空气和海洋互动的交界处。
It is the interface through which all energy and gases must flow.
它是个接口，所有能量和气体都要流过它。
Our sun radiates energy, which is absorbed by oceans as heat and then partially released into the atmosphere.
我们的太阳会散发能量，海洋会将它以热能的形式吸收，接着将一部分释放到大气当中。
Gases in our atmosphere like CO2 get dissolved into our oceans.
我们大气中的气体，如二氧化碳，会溶解到我们的海洋中。
Actually, about 30 percent of all global CO2 gets absorbed.
事实上，全球有大约30%的二氧化碳被吸收。
Plankton and microorganisms release oxygen into the atmosphere,
浮游生物和微生物会把氧气释放到大气中，
so much so that every other breath you take comes from the ocean.
量大到你所吸的每两口气就有一口来自海洋。
Some of that heat generates evaporation, which creates clouds and then eventually leads to precipitation.
有些热能会产生蒸发，创造出云，最终导致降雨。
And pressure gradients create surface wind, which moves the moisture through the atmosphere.
压力梯度会造成地表的风，让湿气透过大气来移动。
Some of the heat radiates down into the deep ocean and gets stored in different layers,
有些热能向下发散到海洋深处，储存在不同层，
the ocean acting as some kind of planetary-scale boiler to store all that energy,
海洋就像是地球规模的锅炉，将所有那些能量储存起来，
which later might be released in short-term events like hurricanes or long-term phenomena like El Nino.
后续可能会透过短期事件来释放，如飓风，或长期现象，如艾尔尼诺。
These layers can get mixed up by vertical upwelling currents or horizontal currents,
垂直向上涌出的气流可能会将各层混合，还有水平的气流，
which are key in transporting heat from the tropics to the poles.
在将热能从热带传送到极地扮演了关键角色。
And of course, there is marine life, occupying the largest ecosystem in volume on the planet,
当然，还有海洋生物，占据了地球上体积最大的生态系统，
from microorganisms to fish to marine mammals, like seals, dolphins and whales.
从微生物到鱼类到海洋哺乳类动物，如海豹、海豚和鲸鱼。
But all of these are mostly invisible to us.
但这些大部分是我们看不见的。
The challenge in studying those ocean variables at scale is one of energy,
大规模研究这些海洋变量的挑战是能量，
the energy that it takes to deploy sensors into the deep ocean.
将传感器部署到海洋深处的能量。
And of course, many solutions have been tried
当然，已经有许多解决方案被尝试过，
from wave-actuated devices to surface drifters to sun-powered electrical drives -- each with their own compromises.
从浪流驱动装置，到卫星追踪浮球，到太阳能电子装置--每一种都有它要妥协的地方。
Our team breakthrough came from an unlikely source -- the pursuit of the world speed record in a wind-powered land yacht.
我们团队的突破，来自一个很不可能的来源--追求打破陆上风帆速度的世界记录。
It took 10 years of research and development to come up with a novel wing concept
在十年的研究和开发之后，才出现了一种新颖的机翼概念，
that only uses three watts of power to control and yet can propel a vehicle all around the globe with seemingly unlimited autonomy.
只用三瓦特的电力就可以控制，但似乎可以非常自主地将载具推进到全世界各地。
By adapting this wing concept into a marine vehicle, we had the genesis of an ocean drone.
我们把这种机翼概念用到海洋载具上，创造出了海洋无人机。
Now, these are larger than they appear.
它们比看起来的还要大。
They are about 15 feet high, 23 feet long, seven feet deep. Think of them as surface satellites.
它们有约十五英尺高，二十三英尺长，七英尺深。把它们想成是地表卫星。

They're laden with an array of science-grade sensors that measure all key variables,
它们装满了一大堆科学等级的传感器，用来测量各种变量，
both oceanographic and atmospheric, and a live satellite link transmits this high-resolution data back to shore in real time.
包括海洋学变量和大气变量，还有现场的卫星链接传输，将这些高分辨率的数据实时回传到岸上。
Our team has been hard at work over the past few years,
过去几年，我们的团队一直很努力，
conducting missions in some of the toughest ocean conditions on the planet, from the Arctic to the tropical Pacific.
在地球上一些最艰巨的海洋条件下执行任务，从北极圈到热带太平洋。
We have sailed all the way to the polar ice shelf.
我们曾经一路航行到极地冰架。
We have sailed into Atlantic hurricanes.
我们曾经航行到大西洋飓风中。
We have rounded Cape Horn, and we have slalomed between the oil rigs of the Gulf of Mexico. This is one tough robot.
我们曾经绕过合恩角，我们曾经在墨西哥湾的石油井间迂回前进。这是个很强悍的机器人。
Let me share with you recent work that we did around the Pribilof Islands.
让我跟各位分享我们近期在普里比洛夫群岛做了什么。
This is a small group of islands deep in the cold Bering Sea between the US and Russia.
这是一小群岛屿，在寒冷的白令海深处，位于美国和俄罗斯之间。
Now, the Bering Sea is the home of the walleye pollock, which is a whitefish you might not recognize,
白令海是狭鳕的家，狭鳕是一种白色鳟鱼，你们可能不认得，
but you might likely have tasted if you enjoy fish sticks or surimi.
但如果你们喜欢吃鱼条或鱼肉酱，很可能就有尝过它。
Yes, surimi looks like crabmeat, but it's actually pollock.
是的，鱼肉酱看起来像蟹肉，但其实是狭鳕。
And the pollock fishery is the largest fishery in the nation,
而狭鳕渔业是美国最大的渔业，
both in terms of value and volume -- about 3.1 billion pounds of fish caught every year.
在价值上和产量上都是最大的--每年会捕获大约三十一亿磅的鱼。
So over the past few years, a fleet of ocean drones has been hard at work in the Bering Sea
在过去几年，一支海洋无人机机队在白令海努力工作着，
with the goal to help assess the size of the pollock fish stock.
目标是要协助评估狭鳕鱼群到底有多大。
This helps improve the quota system that's used to manage the fishery
这个信息能协助改善用来管理渔业的配额系统，
and help prevent a collapse of the fish stock and protects this fragile ecosystem.
并协助预防这种鱼群大量减少，保护这个脆弱的生态系统。
Now, the drones survey the fishing ground using acoustics, i.e., a sonar.
无人机利用声学来调查鱼场，也就是声纳。
This sends a sound wave downwards, and then the reflection,
它会向下发出声波，接着反射，
the echo from the sound wave from the seabed or schools of fish, gives us an idea of what's happening below the surface.
碰到海床或鱼群时，声波会产生回声，让我们知道在海面底下的状况。
Our ocean drones are actually pretty good at this repetitive task, so they have been gridding the Bering Sea day in, day out.
我们的海洋无人机其实很擅长做这种重复性的工作任务，它们一天到晚在白令海分区辛勤工作。
Now, the Pribilof Islands are also the home of a large colony of fur seals.
普里比洛夫群岛也是许多海狗的家。
In the 1950s, there were about two million individuals in that colony.
在20世纪50年代，这个聚居地约有两百万只海狗。
Sadly, these days, the population has rapidly declined.
感伤的是，近期数量已快速下降。
There's less than 50 percent of that number left, and the population continues to fall rapidly.
只剩下不到一半，且数量还在持续快速减少。
So to understand why, our science partner at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory
所以，为了了解原因，我们在国家海洋哺乳类动物实验室的科学伙伴，
has fitted a GPS tag on some of the mother seals, glued to their furs.
在一些海狗妈妈的身上装上了GPS追踪器，黏在它们的毛皮上。
And this tag measures location and depth and also has a really cool little camera that's triggered by sudden acceleration.
这种追踪器会测量地点和深度，还配有一个很酷的小摄影机，只要突然加速就会启动它。
Here is a movie taken by an artistically inclined seal,
这段影片来自一只优美下潜的海狗，
giving us unprecedented insight into an underwater hunt deep in the Arctic,
让我们能看到北极圈深处的水下狩猎，这是前所未有的，
and the shot of this pollock prey just seconds before it gets devoured.
这张照片是被捕食的狭鳕，几秒钟后它就被吃掉了。
Now, doing work in the Arctic is very tough, even for a robot.
即使对机器人来说，在北极圈工作也是很艰苦的。
They had to survive a snowstorm in August and interferences from bystanders -- that little spotted seal enjoying a ride.
它们得要在八月雪暴中存活下来，还会受到旁观者的干涉--那只斑海豹很享受搭便车。
Now, the seal tags have recorded over 200,000 dives over the season,
海狗追踪器记录了当季超过二十万次潜水，
and upon a closer look, we get to see the individual seal tracks and the repetitive dives.
靠近一点看，我们可以看到每只海狗的个别轨迹和重复的下潜。
We are on our way to decode what is really happening over that foraging ground, and it's quite beautiful.
我们正在译解，来探究那掠食之地上到底有什么状况，它非常漂亮。
Once you superimpose the acoustic data collected by the drones, a picture starts to emerge.
一旦你把无人机收集的声学资料迭上去，就会有一张影像浮现。
As the seals leave the islands and swim from left to right,
当海狗离开岛屿，从左向右游时，
they are observed to dive at a relatively shallow depth of about 20 meters,
可以观察到它们下潜的深度相对比较浅，大约二十公尺，
which the drone identifies is populated by small young pollock with low calorific content.
无人机辨识出在这个深度有小型年轻的狭鳕，含热量低。
The seals then swim much greater distance and start to dive deeper to a place
接着，海狗会游比较远的距离，开始潜得比较深，
where the drone identifies larger, more adult pollock, which are more nutritious as fish.
根据无人机的信息，那里有比较大的成年狭鳕，是比较有营养的鱼类。
Unfortunately, the calories expended by the mother seals to swim this extra distance
不幸的是，海狗妈妈为了游这额外的距离而消耗的热量，
don't leave them with enough energy to lactate their pups back on the island, leading to the population decline.
导致它们没有足够的能量回去给岛屿上的小海狗喂奶，造成族群数量下降。
Further, the drones identify that the water temperature around the island has significantly warmed.
此外，无人机发现，岛屿附近的水温明显变暖了。
It might be one of the driving forces that's pushing the pollock north, and to spread in search of colder regions.
可能就是这股力量在驱使狭鳕北移，并散开来寻找比较冷的区域。
So the data analysis is ongoing,
资料分析还在进行中，
but already we can see that some of the pieces of the puzzle from the fur seal mystery are coming into focus.
但我们已经可以看到，海狗之谜的一些部分正成为人们关注的焦点。
But if you look back at the big picture, we are mammals, too.
但如果你回头看看整体，我们也是哺乳类动物。
And actually, the oceans provide up to 20 kilos of fish per human per year.
事实上，海洋每年为每个人提供高达二十公斤的鱼类。
As we deplete our fish stocks, what can we humans learn from the fur seal story?
当我们不断消耗鱼群，我们人类能从海狗的故事里学到什么？
And beyond fish, the oceans affect all of us daily as they drive global weather systems,
除了鱼类之外，海洋每天也影响着我们所有人，因为海洋会带动全球天气系统，
which affect things like global agricultural output
影响比如全球农业产出，
or can lead to devastating destruction of lives and property through hurricanes, extreme heat and floods.
或可能透过飓风、极度高温和洪水，造成生命的严重损失和贫困。
Our oceans are pretty much unexplored and undersampled, and today, we still know more about other planets than our own.
我们的海洋还有太多未被探索之处，也没有足够的采样，现今，我们对于其他星球的了解仍然多于我们的星球。
But if you divide this vast ocean in six-by-six-degree squares, each about 400 miles long, you'd get about 1,000 such squares.
但如果把广大的海洋切割成6x6度的正方形，每一块大约四百英里长，你就会得到大约一千个这种正方形。
So little by little, working with our partners, we are deploying one ocean drone in each of those boxes,
所以，我们和合作伙伴一点一点来努力，我们在每一个格中部署一台海洋无人机，
the hope being that achieving planetary coverage will give us better insights into those planetary systems that affect humanity.
希望能够涵盖整个地球，让我们更深入了解那些会影响人类的地球系统。
We have been using robots to study distant worlds in our solar system for a while now.
我们开始用机器人来研究我们太阳系中遥远的世界已经有一段时间了。
Now it is time to quantify our own planet, because we cannot fix what we cannot measure,
该是量化我们星球的时候了。因为我们无法修复我们无法测量的东西，
and we cannot prepare for what we don't know. Thank you.
并且我们无法准备我们未知的东西。谢谢。