Opaline, the connection I don't get is how an increase of 0.46 C in the last 35 years:
"Expressed as a linear trend, this temperature rose by 0.74 C +/- 0.18 C over the period 1906-2005. The rate of warming over the last half of that period was almost double that for the period as a whole (0.13 C +/- 0.03 C per decade, versus 0.07 C +/- 0.02 C per decade)." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming)
translates into a 0.56 C increase in ocean temperatures:
"Climate change experts studying hurricanes documented a 35-year warming trend in ocean surface temperature and linked it to larger hurricanes. The increase has been 1 degree Fahrenheit, resulting in four percent more atmospheric water vapor and six to eight percent more rainfall. Though global warming does not guarantee that each year will see record-strength hurricanes, the long-term ocean warming should raise the baseline of hurricane activity." (http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0204-global_warming_equals_stronger_hurricanes.htm).
Thermodynamically that is very unlikely.
In any event, the heat transfer rate from a warm gas on top of a cooler liquid is very poor. Even if the atmosphere was 1 C warmer than the oceans, it would take millennia for the oceans to catch up.
It is more logical that the oceans are warming, and the heat is being transferred to the atmosphere.
