This drying appears to be an atmospheric response to cooling ocean temperatures, which may reflect changes in tropical ocean circulation, the intensification of Indian Monsoon winds or perhaps other changes associated with Pliocene cooling.
Instead, he wonders whether ocean acidification, which may also be a source of stress that weakens sea stars, is a possible contributing factor.
As melting causes the sea level to rise, the added weight will increase pressure on the ocean floor, which may suppress eruptions from deep-sea volcanoes.
Scientists have attributed this pattern to other effects of climate change changes in the prevailing wind patterns that generally push the ice northward or in the size of ocean waves, which may shrink and allow the ice to expand or grow and herd it back toward the coast.
The Southern New England decline appears to be driven by environmental and biological changes [pdf] typified by the spread of a bacterial shell disease, rising ocean temperatures (which may be a root cause for the spread of the shell disease), and a loss in recruitment as spawning has shifted to deeper (and colder) waters.
A progression of increasing lag times can be spatially linked to the ocean conveyor belt, which may transport the solar signal over a time span of several decades.
A large lava bench collapsed into the ocean on August 13, which may have been related to the hurricane's passage, or alternatively, a recent 5.4 magnitude earthquake.
Indirect evidence is also available from assessments of relevant within-population genetic diversity, for example in tolerance traits in the face of warming or ocean acidification stress, which may then be combined with population genetic projections on adaptation rates (Sunday et al. 2011; Kelly et al. 2013).
Negative anomalies in ASR and N during 1985–1986 in all data sets (including CMIP5) imply smaller increases in ocean heat content which may reflect the remaining presence of volcanic aerosol from the 1982 El Chichón eruption and other smaller volcanic eruptions (Nevado del Ruiz, Augustine, and Chikurachki; see Vernier et al. [ 2011] for details) and the minimum of the solar cycle in 1985/1986.
However, analysis of zircons formed 4.4 Ga indicates that Earth's crust solidified about 100 million years after the planet's formation and that the planet quickly acquired oceans and an atmosphere, which may have been capable of supporting life.
