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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.

在这一系列关于天气预报的历史的讲座中，我将首先回顾一下天气预报的早期历史——也就是今天演讲的主题。

OK, so we'll start by going back thousands of years.

好的，我们将从数千年之前开始说起。

Most ancient cultures had weather gods, and weather catastrophes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths.

大多数古文化都有天气之神，而洪水等气候灾害在许多创世神话中扮演了重要的角色。

Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows.

一般来说，天气被认为是神的旨意，各种文明中的天气之神都表明了这一点。

For instance, there's the Egyptian sun god Ra, and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning.

例如，埃及的太阳神拉和挪威的雷电神索尔。

Many ancient civilisations developed rites such as dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.

许多古代文明设立了舞蹈一类的仪式以求天气之神善待他们。

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.

但天气在日常生活中也是重要的：观察天空并从中得出正确结论非常重要，事实上古人的生存就取决于此。

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.

我们尚未得知人们从何时开始观测天空。但大约在公元前650年，古巴比伦人基于他们对云和其他现象的观测发布了首个短期天气预报。

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.

中国人也识别了天气的模式。到公元前300年，天文学家发明了一个日历，将一年划分为24个节气，每个节气都有不同的天气现象。

The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather.

古希腊人最先形成了一个更科学的解释天气的方法。

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.

公元前四世纪的哲学家、科学家亚里士多德的著作特别值得一提，因为他的思想已经流传了近两千年。

In 340 BC, he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms.

公元前340年，他写了一本书，尝试解释雨、云、风和风暴的形成。

He also described celestial phenomena such as haloes - that is, bright circles of light around the sun, the moon and bright stars - and comets.

他还描述了一些天文现象，比如光晕——即围绕太阳、月亮和明亮的恒星以及彗星的明亮光圈。

Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate.

他的许多观测都惊人得准确。

For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate.

比如，他认为热可以让水蒸发。

But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the Earth.

但他也得到了不少错误的结论，比如风是地球呼吸产生的。

Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.

这样的错误在文艺复兴时期起得到了纠正。

For nearly 2,000 years, Aristotle's work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory.

在将近2000年的时间里，亚里士多德的著作被认为是天气理论的主要权威。

Alongside this, though, in the Middle Ages weather observations were passed on in the form of proverbs, such as 'Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning'.

除此之外，在中世纪，天气观测以谚语的形式传递，例如“夜晚的红色天空是牧羊人的喜悦; 早上的红色天空是给牧羊人的警告。”

Many of these are based on very good observations and are accurate as contemporary meteorologists have discovered.

这些谚语许多是基于非常好的观测，并且大都是准确的，正如当代气象学家所发现的那样。

For centuries, any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observations, but in the fifteenth century scientists began to see the need for instruments.

几个世纪以来，任何预测天气的尝试都只能基于个人观察，但在十五世纪，科学家们开始意识到对仪器的需要。

Until then, the only ones available were weather vanes - to determine the wind direction and early versions of rain gauges.

在此之前，唯一可用的是风向标——用于确定风向，还有早期版本的雨量计。

One of the first, invented in the fifteenth century, was a hygrometer, which measured humidity.

在15世纪发明的第一个天气仪器是湿度计，用于测量湿度。

This was one of many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting.

这是有助于天气预报发展的众多发明的其中一个。

In 1592, the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world's first thermometer.

在1592年，意大利科学家、发明家伽利略开发出世界上第一台温度计。

His student Torricelli later invented the barometer, which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure.

后来他的学生托里切利发明了气压计，让人们可以测量气压。

In 1648, the French philosopher Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude.

在1648年，法国哲学家帕斯卡证明了压力随着海拔的升高而降低。

This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 1686; and Halley was also the first person to map trade winds.

英国天文学家哈雷于1686年证实了这一发现；哈雷也是第一个绘制信风图的人。

This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its processes better, and they started collecting weather observation data systematically.

随着测量天气相关因素的能力越来越强，科学家们可以更好地了解大气及其变化过程，并开始系统地收集天气观测数据。

In the eighteenth century, the scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular, but he was also very interested in weather and studied it throughout most of his life.

在十八世纪，科学家、政治家本杰明·富兰克林开展了电力特别是闪电方面的工作，但他对天气也非常感兴趣，并且大半生都在研究它。

It was Franklin who discovered that storms generally travel from west to east.

正是富兰克林发现了风暴一般从西向东移动。

In addition to new meteorological instruments, other developments contributed to our understanding of the atmosphere.

除了新型气象仪器之外，还有别的发展促进了我们对气象的认识。

People in different locations began to keep records, and in the mid-nineteenth century, the invention of the telegraph made it possible for these records to be collated.

不同地区的人们开始记录天气的各项数据，在十九世纪中期，电报的发明使这些记录的整理成为可能。

This led, by the end of the nineteenth century, to the first weather services.

这促使了十九世纪末首个气象服务的产生。

It was not until the early twentieth century that mathematics and physics became part of meteorology, and we'll continue from that point next week.

直到20世纪初，数学和物理才成为气象学的一部分，我们下周将继续从这里说起。