Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years, especially in the part of the Pacific Ocean where El Nino weather patterns are born, climate scientists reported on Monday.
           

Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years, especially in the part of the Pacific Ocean where El Nino weather patterns are born, climate scientists reported on Monday.

This doesn't necessarily mean there will be more frequent El Ninos, but could well mean that these wild patterns will be stronger when they occur, said James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The El Nino phenomenon is an important factor in monitoring global warming, according to a paper by Hansen and colleagues published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

El Ninos can push temperatures higher than they might ordinarily be. This happened in 1998 when a so-called "super El Nino" helped heat the Earth to a record high.

What is significant, the scientists wrote, is that 2005 was in the same temperature range as 1998, and probably was the warmest year ever, with no sign of the warm surface water in the eastern equatorial Pacific typical of an El Nino.

The waters of the western equatorial Pacific are warmer than in the eastern equatorial Pacific, and the difference in temperature between these two areas could produce greater temperature swings between the normal weather pattern and El Nino, they wrote.

They blamed this phenomenon on global warming that is affecting the surface of the western Pacific.

据气象科学家周一介绍，地球温度可能将攀至百万年来的最高点，尤其是在"厄尔尼诺"气候模式产生的太平洋地区。

美国国家航空航天局戈达德太空研究所的詹姆斯·汉森说："这不一定表明'厄尔尼诺'现象会越来越频繁，但能充分说明它会来得更猛烈。"

汉森和他的同事在最近一期《国家科学学会学报》[文章来源：中国大学在线]上发表的论文中指出，"厄尔尼诺"现象是监测全球变暖的一个重要因素。

"厄尔尼诺"现象会使地球温度升高，1998年发生的"超级厄尔尼诺"事件曾使全球温度创下历史最高纪录。

论文中提到，重要的一点是，2005年的全球温度范围和1998年相同，可能是近百万年来地球温度最高的一年，但常发生"厄尔尼诺"现象的东赤道太平洋海域的海表水温并没有变暖的迹象。

西赤道太平洋的海表温度高于东赤道太平洋，这两个地区的温度差会加大地球温度在正常模式和"厄尔尼诺"之间的变化。

科学家们称，造成这一现象的重要原因是全球变暖，目前，西太平洋海域正受到全球变暖的影响。