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While it's still hotly debated among scientists whether climate change causes a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to one known as El Nino Modoki, scientists now say that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North Pacific Ocean.

The research is published online in the journal Nature Geoscience(地球科学). El Nino is a periodic(周期的)warming in the eastern tropical Pacific that occurs along the coast of South America. Recently, scientists have noticed that El Nino warming is stronger in the Central Pacific rather than the Eastern Pacific, a phenomenon known as El Nino Modoki (Modoki is a Japanese term for "similar, but different").

Last year, the journal Nature published a paper that found climate change is behind this shift from El Nino to El Nino Modoki. While the findings of that paper are still being debated, this latest paper in Nature Geoscience presents evidence that El Nino Modoki drives a climate pattern known as the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO).

"We've found that El Nino Modoki is responsible for changes in the NPGO,"said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The reason this is important is because the NPGO has significant effects on fish stocks(鱼类)and ocean nutrient distributions(海洋营养分布)in the Pacific, especially along the west coast of the United States."

The NPGO, first named two years ago by Di Lorenzo and colleagues in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters, explained for the first time long-term changes in ocean circulation of the North Pacific, which scientists now link to an increasing number of dramatic transitions in coastal marine(沿海海域)ecosystems.

"The ecosystems of the Pacific may very well become more sensitive to the NPGO in the future," said Di Lorenzo. "Our data show that this NPGO is definitively linked to El Nino Modoki, so as Modoki becomes more frequent in the central tropical Pacific, the NPGO will also intensify(增强)."

Vocabulary：

Geoscience：n. 地球科学

environmental geoscience　环境地学

South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission

南太平洋应用地球科学委员会(南太地科委)

Coordinating Committee for Coastal and Offshore Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia

东亚和东南亚沿海和近海地球科学方案协调委员

Periodic：a.周期的，定期的，时而发生的

The quality or state of being periodic; recurrence at regular intervals.

周期性周期出现的性质或状态; 以固定的间隔而发生

A column in the periodic table of the elements.

属，族元素周期表上的一栏

Ecosystems：生态系统

Aquatic ecosystems share a number of basic structural and functional characteristics with terrestrial ecosystems.

水生生态系统的结构和机能,在许多基本特征方面同陆地生态系统一样。

Temperate forest ecosystems occupy a position of prominence among all ecosystems.

温带森林生态系统在所有生态系统中占有优势地位。

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