By Tobias Carroll The New York metropolitan area is currently experiencing a heat wave, as is often the case in late July. Not surprisingly, that’s led to a lot of area residents heading to the beach, under the entirely reasonable idea that brutally hot temperatures are an excellent reason to plunge into the ocean. Unfortunately, several local beaches have been closed due to shark sightings. Those are not isolated incidents, either — there have been a growing number of shark sightings, as well as some bites, throughout the year. As it turns out, that higher number of sharks could actually be a…