The shells should provide evidence of how ocean temperatures changed during that period.
The team next plans to look at ocean temperatures, in order to construct a truly global dataset.
Hurricanes thrive on water and wind -- specifically, warm ocean temperatures and vapor swirled up into the atmosphere by ocean surface winds.
If nearby ocean temperatures climb higher still, as climate projections would have them do, Ascension will probably become ever moister and greener.
Frank Lepore of the National Hurricane Center said scientists were looking at warmer ocean temperatures as a possible factor in this year's forecast.
Some have speculated that overfishing, pollution or rising ocean temperatures may have depleted the kinds of fish that prey on Nomura's jellyfish in the polyp stage.
Its beach is lovely, and the neighbouring Sesachacha Pond offers an alternative to chilly ocean temperatures, but the hot journey and lack of lunch options made the children overheated, cranky messes.
Though that did not make the situation any better than it is now, it was enough to stop storms becoming even more powerful as global carbon-dioxide levels rose, and ocean temperatures rose with them.
If carbon dioxide were black, we could actually see our atmosphere darkening with carbon dioxide, creating a heat-trapping blanket that is raising global air and ocean temperatures and threatening to dramatically rearrange our climate.
When word of Gates' five patent applications first made headlines in July, alarmed bloggers lit up the Internet, expressing fears that playing with ocean temperatures could lead to catastrophe, possibly forcing a storm in a different direction.
Berkeley Earth plan to address ocean temperatures (which the IPCC state has not warmed as much as land) in their next study, with a view to gaining a more accurate view of the total amount of observable global warming.
People don't easily understand how a small sea level rise can result in bigger storm surges and coastal damage, or how slight changes in ocean temperatures can change global rainfall patterns, leading to droughts and floods with catastrophic economic and societal consequences.
The Nasa researchers, alongside a team from UCSB, made the comparison by looking at past tropical ocean surface temperatures.
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"Ice shelves are sensitive to atmospheric warming and to changes in ocean currents and temperatures, " Helmut Rott from the University of Innsbruck said in an statement from the space agency.
Added to the general atmospheric warming in the region, the researchers also describe an amplification process whereby reduced snow cover on the surrounding tundra and less sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean push up temperatures still further.
Global warming advocates have responded, in turn, that while the sun has indeed been more active in the last half of the century, the actual percentage change in solar irradiance is tiny, and hardly seems large enough to explain measured increases in temperatures and ocean heat content.
Instead, the temperature record shows an up and down pattern that follows the pattern of natural influences on global temperatures, such as cyclical sunspots and solar flares, and cycles of ocean churning from warmer to colder temperatures and back, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
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Although the Met Office has 1998 as the single warmest year, that coincided with strong El Nino conditions - the warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific that releases heat stored in the deep ocean into the atmosphere, raising temperatures globally.
Scientists say rising temperatures could lead to rising ocean levels, which would in turn swamp coastal areas and islands, wipe out species, create economic havoc and amplify the impact of natural disasters such as storms, fires and droughts.
But this is an emerging and highly complex area of science because of the interplay of natural factors and manmade greenhouse gases at a time when a key set of temperatures - in the deep ocean - is still relatively unknown.
It is not a consequence of higher air temperatures, but from changes in ocean circulation caused by atmospheric forcing.
We believe SOCAT will become an invaluable resource for anyone studying the ocean carbon cycle and its influence on global temperatures.
But surface temperatures in all six of the ocean basins he examined (the north and south Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans) have increased by about half a degree Celsius.
Scientists have found single-cell archaea bacteria growing at temperatures as high as 234 degrees Fahrenheit at ocean vents on Earth.
Local temperatures would still change in some places, as would ocean currents, rainfall patterns, soil moisture and photosynthesis.
And the unusual sea temperatures will continue to create a clear corridor in the Atlantic Ocean for more storms to come.
Although scientists have long recognised that mid latitudes were warmer when dinosaurs walked the Earth, some researchers have held to the view - partly based on the previous shell data - that different ocean currents must have operated at the time, leading to warmer polar temperatures but, crucially, cooler tropical temperatures.
Those ocean temperature cycles, and the continued recovery from the Little Ice Age, are primarily why global temperatures rose from 1915 until 1945, when CO2 emissions were much lower than in recent years.
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