Thanks to Crazy Ivan for pointing this out to me – sort of an old post, but it’s worth posting here if you haven’t heard about this.
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Originally posted by Martin Brody on August 3, 2009 – The entire original article may be found here.

There’s been a lot of Great White Shark activity in Southern California lately… sightings and video footage in Malibu, fly-fishing in San Diego, sightings in Northern Santa Barbara County, and more. To what can we attribute this sharp uptick in Great White Shark activity here in So Cal? How about El Niño?!

NOAA’s analysis of El Niño indicates that we can expect this cyclical phenomenon to appear this winter – “Synopsis: El Niño conditions will continue to develop and are expected to last through the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-2010.

During June 2009, conditions across the equatorial Pacific Ocean transitioned from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions. Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies continued to increase… Subsurface oceanic heat content anomalies (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) also increased as the thermocline continued to deepen. Consistent with the oceanic evolution, the low-level equatorial trade winds were weaker-than-average across much of the Pacific basin, and convection became increasingly suppressed over Indonesia. This coupling of the ocean and atmosphere indicates the development of El Niño conditions.”

Across the Atlantic, the world is watching and waiting… The Independent reports: “A new El Niño has begun. The sporadic Pacific Ocean warming, which can disrupt weather patterns across the world, is intensifying, say meteorologists. So, over the next few months, there may be increased drought in Africa, India and Australia, heavier rainfall in South America and increased extremes in Britain, of warm and cold. It may make 2010 one of the hottest years on record.”

Scientists present a number of theories for the increase in shark-human interactions: “Dr. George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert who maintains the International Shark Attack file, states ‘As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.’

The entire original article may be found here.

Thank you Max Bottomtime for pointing this article out.

This may have happened on the Bottom Scratcher as a lot of people have found my site yesterday searching for “Bottom+scratcher+dive+accident;” that is purely my speculation, though.
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An amateur fisherman participating in the opening weekend of spiny lobster season drowned off the coast of Santa Catalina Island early Saturday morning, authorities said.

The man was night-diving with a charter boat group in 30-foot-deep water when he floated to the surface, unconscious, shortly after 4 a.m., said U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Tyler Stutin.

Authorities rushed him to Catalina’s USC Hyperbaric Chamber but he was declared dead a short time later. The Los Angeles County Coroner identified him as Jesus Marti, a Long Beach resident in his early 30s.

Stutin said the Coast Guard and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department would investigate the death.

At the time of the accident, hundreds of novice fisherman were swarming the waters three miles off the western coast of the island searching for the lobster. Many of them were inexperienced and struggled under bad weather and gale force winds.

“We are running into a lot of problems. The weather is picking up,” Stutin said.

— Garrett Therolf

The original story can be found here.