There is a word for this type of climate: monsoon,
这类气候有一个称谓,季风
but Judy's theory is that this was a monsoon like no other, a mega-monsoon.
Judy的观点是它不是一般季风,而是超级季风
The word monsoon comes from an Arabic word that means season,
“季风”这个词来自阿拉伯语,意思是季节
so a mega-monsoon is where that really goes to extremes.
超级季风则是非常极端的气候
This climate of extremes, veering from very wet to very hot and dry, was unique to the super-continent.
这类极端气候--从湿润多雨到酷热干旱,是超大陆的一大特点
One of the things that would have been characteristic of this very strong monsoonal system
必须提到一点,这种强大无比的季风系的特点
is that you would have had a similar climate over a very large part of the world,
表现为世界上大片地区都有类似的气候
so this would have been a world in which the environments were not particularly diverse.
也就是说当时世界上的环境并不是很多变
According to the theory, a uniform world led to uniform animals.
根据这种观点,相同的世界造就了相同的动物
This was why the early dinosaurs lacked variety
这也是早期恐龙种类很少的原因
and as long as the super-continent existed nothing much was going to change,
只要超大陆不复存在,很多情况就会发生变化
but then of course something did change.
当然,后来的确发生了变化
As the super-continent broke up areas that had been landlocked for millions of years would have been surrounded by water.
随着超大陆的崩解,原先封闭的内陆地区逐渐被水包围。