{"62209":{"#nid":"62209","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Climate Change May Alter Natural Climate Cycles of Pacific","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile it\u2019s still hotly debated among scientists whether \nclimate change causes a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to \none known as El Nino Modoki, online in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Geoscience\u003C\/em\u003E, scientists now say that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North Pacific Ocean.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEl\n Nino is a periodic warming in the eastern tropical Pacific that occurs \nalong the coast of South America. Recently, scientists have noticed that\n El Nino warming is stronger in the Central Pacific rather than the \nEastern Pacific, a phenomenon known as El Nino Modoki (Modoki is a \nJapanese term for \u0022similar, but different\u0022).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELast year, the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature\u003C\/em\u003E\n published a paper that found climate change is behind this shift from \nEl Nino to El Nino Modoki. While the findings of that paper are still \nbeing debated, this latest paper in Nature Geoscience presents evidence \nthat El Nino Modoki drives a climate pattern known as the North Pacific \nGyre Oscillation (NPGO).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019ve found that El Nino Modoki is \nresponsible for changes in the NPGO,\u201dsaid Emanuele Di Lorenzo, associate\n professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the \nGeorgia Institute of Technology. \u201cThe reason this is important is \nbecause the NPGO has significant effects on fish stocks and ocean \nnutrient distributions in the Pacific, especially along the west coast \nof the United States.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe NPGO, first named two years ago by Di \nLorenzo and colleagues in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters, \nexplained for the first time long-term changes in ocean circulation of \nthe North Pacific, which scientists now link to an increasing number of \ndramatic transitions in coastal marine ecosystems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe ecosystems\n of the Pacific may very well become more sensitive to the NPGO in the \nfuture,\u201d said Di Lorenzo. \u201cOur data show that this NPGO is definitively \nlinked to El Nino Modoki, so as Modoki becomes more frequent in the \ncentral tropical Pacific, the NPGO will also intensify.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile it\u2019s still hotly debated among scientists whether climate change \ncauses a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to one known as El \nNino Modoki, online in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists now say\n that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North \nPacific Ocean.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"El Nino Modoki found to affect long-term changes long term changes in the North Pacific."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2010-10-18 08:16:33","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:38","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-10-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-10-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2124","name":"di lorenzo"},{"id":"10994","name":"el nino"},{"id":"2121","name":"gyre"},{"id":"10995","name":"modoki"},{"id":"2120","name":"pacific"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}