Some observations from some recent cruises off central California, but first, be aware that SSTs off California have been gradually climbing during the past decades, so that even w/o ENSO, often they are warmer than they were during the GREAT ENSO of 1982/83. Truly SSTs off here are warm now, reaching 19 C inshore, 17-18 C off the shelf.
We have a paper about to be published (Schwing et al. 1997, in Calif Coop Ocean Fish Investig Reports) that reviews the physical and biological oceanography off central and southern Calif during the past few years. Included are "invasions" of several seabird species usually around off Mexico and central America: Parkinson's Petrel, Dark-rumped Petrel (several) and Swallow-tailed Gull, etc.
Most recently, on cruises, we have detected three patterns: 1) continued invasion of warm-water birds to waters off San Francisco (fish, too, but other folks have been reporting those): RB tropicbird, Least Storm-petrel and more Black Storm-petrels than usual; 2) an almost complete absence of birds in waters deeper than 2000 m (i.e., life has moved to the shelf break and nearer to shore); and 3) evidence of increased mortality (i.e. floating dead bodies) of alcids (murres and auklets) but not other species present (gulls, shearwaters).-- David Ainley <harveyecology @worldnet.att.net>