Galápagos faces climate tipping point from stronger El Niño
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- Galápagos Islands are experiencing extreme ocean warming due to a strengthening El Niño, with water temperatures rising from around 18°C to over 30°C, disrupting marine life.
- El Niño is unfolding in 2026-27 and may bring record temperatures, building on an already overheating climate, with scientists bracing for severe ecological impacts.
- Marine species such as Galápagos penguins, fur seals, marine iguanas, and Nazca boobies face population crashes during El Niño as food sources vanish and habitats degrade.
- Jon Witman observed that marine iguanas can shrink their skeletons to survive El Niño and regrow them afterward, showing evolutionary adaptation to climate oscillations.
- Witman and colleagues documented an ulcerative skin disease in fish during the 2015–16 El Niño and recorded extinctions, including the Galápagos damselfish, during the 1982–83 event.
- Witman warns the repeated stress of more frequent and extreme El Niños may push the Galápagos ecosystem past a tipping point into a new, less productive state.
Why it matters: The Galápagos, a natural laboratory for evolution, may lose endemic species if climate-driven El Niños become too frequent for adaptation, shifting the ecosystem to one with lower biodiversity—directly affecting global understanding of climate resilience in marine life.
