Record El Niño Threatens Great Barrier Reef Tipping Point — SkimNews
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- Scientists warn a record-breaking El Niño peaking in the Pacific could push parts of the Great Barrier Reef past a tipping point into seaweed-dominated ecosystems that are extremely difficult to reverse.
- David Schoeman at the University of the Sunshine Coast says warming is now severe enough that mass bleaching can occur even in La Niña years, with six bleaching events in the past decade.
- Neal Cantin at the Australian Institute of Marine Science reports that 2024 bleaching hit 60% of corals across roughly 40% of the reef, with 70-90% mortality in many areas — including Swains Reefs, previously considered a cool-water buffer.
- Cantin documents the escalating spatial footprint of severe bleaching: about 8% of reefs hit mortality-level bleaching in 1998, 35% in 2016, and reef-wide severe bleaching and mortality by 2024.
- Daniel Harrison at Southern Cross University says marine cloud brightening — the most promising near-term mitigation tool — won't be ready to deploy until 2028 at the earliest.
- Harrison's research links an 80% reduction in shipping sulphate aerosols in the reef region to an extra 0.15°C of sea-surface warming, an underappreciated factor in bleaching risk.
Why it matters: The 2024 event killed 70-90% of corals across large reef areas, and another severe bleaching summer could push sections past a tipping point that is essentially irreversible on human timescales — yet the most promising intervention won't deploy until at least 2028, leaving the reef without a buffer during what Cantin calls a 'new era of heat stress.'
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