‘Collapse could be precipitous’: Super El Niño could push coral reefs to extinction

A potentially record-breaking super El Niño could push the world’s fragile coral reefs closer to extinction as ocean temperatures soar to unprecedented levels, David Obura, chair of the UN’s expert scientific panel on biodiversity, has warned.In an interview with news agency AFP, Obura, a Kenyan marine scientist and coral reef expert who chairs the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), said the developing climate phenomenon posed a major additional threat to already vulnerable coral species.“This year's El Niño layers a terrifying level of additional risk,” Obura said.Corals are highly sensitive to heat and particularly vulnerable to climate change, which is warming the world’s oceans and increasing the frequency and intensity of damaging bleaching events.The developing El Niño in the tropical Pacific could intensify these pressures, putting some coral species at greater risk of extinction.El Niño is the warming phase of a natural climate cycle that temporarily raises…