In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I'll start by examining its early history -- that'll be the subject of today's talk.
在关于天气预报历史的系列讲座中，我将以早期历史开始，也就是今天的主题。
OK, so we'll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods, and weather catastrophes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths. Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows. For instance, there's the Egyptian sun god Ra, and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning. Many ancient civilisations developed rites such as dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.
好的，那就让我们回到千万年之前吧。很多古文化都有气候之神，气候灾害，比如说洪涝灾害，在很多神话创造中都扮演着重要的角色。总的来说，气候变化是神的旨意，不同的文化有不同的掌管气候的神明。比如说，埃及的太阳之神是拉，还有索尔，是北欧雷电之神。很多古文明发展出一套仪式，比如说舞蹈来祈求气候之神的庇佑。
But the weather was of daily importance: observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusions from these observations was really important, in fact their survival depended on it. It isn't known when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 BC, the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena. The Chinese also recognised weather patterns, and by 300 BC, astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.
但是就每日的范围而言，气候也非常重要：观察天空，从观察中得出正确的结论非常重要，事实上，人类的生存就取决于此。人类第一次开始观测天空已不可知，但是大概在公元前650年，巴比伦人创造了第一个短期天气预报系统，基于他们对于云彩和其他现象的观察。中国人也识别了气候模式，到公元前三百年，天文学家已经发展出一套历法，将一年分为二十四个节气，每个节气和不同的气候现象相关联。
The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle, in the fourth century BC, is especially noteworthy, as his ideas held sway for nearly 2,000 years. In 340 BC, he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms. He also described celestial phenomena such as haloes -- that is, bright circles of light around the sun, the moon and bright stars -- and comets. Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the Earth. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.
古希腊是第一个形成更加科学的解释气候的方法的。哲学家及科学家亚里士多德在公元前四百年所做的事业极为卓越，因为他的思路延续了将近两千年。在公元前340年，他撰写了一本书，在这本书中，他尝试解释雨、云、风和暴雨的形成。他也描述了天体现象，比如说光晕--那是太阳、月亮和明星周围的光圈--还有彗星。令人惊奇的是，他的很多观测都是正确的。比如说，他相信热能够让水蒸发。但是他也得出了不少错误结论，比如说风是地球所释放的。这些错误在文艺复兴之后被纠正了。